🙏 Pray (Mark 14:32-52)

Have you ever heard the saying, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”? Perhaps we say this to express that, yes, I want to do that! But too bad I’m not strong enough to do it. An excuse for why we can’t do what we know is the good thing to do 🥴

But this is not what Jesus means when he says this in Mark 14:32-52! In fact it is precisely because the flesh is weak, even though the spirit is willing, that Jesus instructs his disciples to stay awake and pray.

When we are spiritually asleep, we are unaware of what is truly happening around us, we are unable to respond to spiritual danger, and we will easily fall victim to evil and despair. When we are living according to the flesh, as persuaded by the influences of this world, we easily fall away like the disciples did.

Yet, let us not end up like Judas, who even though he eventually realized the consequences of what he had done, continued to do things his own way. Rather than turning to God for His judgment and help, he took matters into his own hands and ended his own life.

Instead, let us follow Jesus’s instructions. When things seem all but lost, stay awake and pray. Draw close to God, put our focus on Him, and seek His will rather than our own. Just like what Jesus did in his time of trouble.

Summary by Horace