Sorrow in the Garden

Then he [Jesus] said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me." Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." Matthew 26:38-39

Rich Nathan, Vineyard Columbus, stated last night the only fear we should have is the fear of being separated from God.

Reading Richard Foster’s Prayer- Finding the Heart’s True Home this morning, I was challenged to read the account of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. As easy as it is for us to think it was the physical suffering that Jesus wanted to avoid, I was reminded that it was the agony of being completely separated from God that caused Jesus to fall to his face and pray for some other way to restore mankind to God.

Since my own “Garden Experience” a few years ago, (see The Power of Love) my life as changed. I know there is something much greater than any physical suffering. Because of Christ, I will never have to be totally removed from God’s love.

Ponder on that thought a moment. Everything you see and experience in this physical realm has the essence of God in it in some way. He created everything and everything he created is good.^[*] Now, imagine an existence without any of that.

Thank you, Jesus, for not only dying a painful physical death but for experiencing the death of your soul so that I don’t have to.

---

^[*] Even the evil we experience is simply God’s creation or ideas twisted by the selfishness of man.