February 18, 2010 THE INITIATIVE AGAINST DESPAIR

Matthew 26:46 Up, let’s be going…

When Christ went to Gethsemene to pray, he sought support from His disciples. He told them “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me” (Matthew 26:38). But the disciples failed Jesus miserably. While Jesus poured out His anguished heart to the Father, Peter, James and John fell asleep. When he returned and found them sleeping he chastised Peter “Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!” (Matthew 26: 40-41). Christ knew that not only would He face trial and temptation, but that Peter would as well. Peter needed to be on His knees before the Father, praying for strength. And yet, Peter failed to see his need to pray and slept instead.

When Judas arrived to betray Jesus, Peter, James and John were fast asleep. Christ woke them saying “Up, let’s be going!” He didn’t dwell on the fact that they were sleeping when they should have been praying. He didn’t say “you fools! You’ve failed me and yourselves! Now watch what disasters will befall us.” No, he simply said “Come on, on to the next thing. Let’s go.”

All of us have squandered opportunities to do the right thing. All of us have failed to see our desperate need to pray and have fallen asleep instead - both literally and figuratively.  All of us have failed God. And yet, the Lord doesn’t dwell on those failures and neither should we. It isn’t that we shouldn’t care, but rather that we learn from those times and move on to the next opportunity. If we dwell on our failures and they paralyze us from doing anything else, we’ve compounded the sin of the first loss. Chambers sums it up beautifully:

The disciples in this instance had done a downright unforgivable thing; they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus, but He came with a spiritual initiative against their despair and said – “Arise and do the next thing.” If we are inspired of God, what is the next thing? To trust Him absolutely and to pray on the ground of His Redemption.

Never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action.