Can You Not Pray With Me?
Can You Not Pray With Me?
40 Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?
Matthew 26:40
It is amazing how much humanity tends to fail in the presence of God. Out of every tree in Eden, we only had to not eat from one. That was our first test. Seemed easy enough and yet we failed miserably. The world’s first brothers ends up in murder of one. Out of an entire planet only 8 are saved in the flood. God blessed an entire nation in a dessert with food, water, shelter, warmth and purpose and yet an entire generation died, minus a handful, before entering the Promised Land. The twelve tribes surrounded by enemies couldn’t still help but fight each other. The Israel Kingdom was broken up by the fourth king generation. And we could go on but instead let’s look at our verse.
All the disciples had to do was stay awake and pray. The Bible makes it very clear that they could see the anguish in Jesus. They could see that he needed them for the first time instead of them needing him. He had always been there for them. He calmed the sea. He fed the multitude. He raised the dead. He was always there but when he needed us- we went to sleep.
If Jesus was to ask us this same question, could we do it. Could we stay up an entire night and just pray silently among ourselves?
41 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Matthew 26:41
Thank goodness that Jesus knows our weaknesses. He knows that we may even desire to do something in our hearts but our flesh just is too corrupted by sin to accomplish even the simplest of goals. But does that mean we are doomed to always be failures in God’s eyes?
Let’s look at the disciples again. They failed miserably many times while with Jesus but everything changed when they received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Cowards became stalwarts, liars became truth preachers. It’s not that became perfect, they still had there falls, but now they did have the same power that Jesus himself had. He gave us what carried him.
We too can have this Holy Spirit and grow. We don’t have to be disappointments.
God bless,
Pr. Steven Couto