| Finding the Way |
Chapter 7 |
Page 7 |
We see the Master at prayer again, this time in Gethsemane. It was here that He prepared for His cross. We should notice that His refuge in His exceeding sorrow was prayer, and that, as the sorrow deepened, the refuge still was prayer. “Being in an agony He prayed more earnestly.” Prayer is the only refuge in sorrow. The lesson from the garden prayer is that we should take all the hard things, the anguishes, the insufferable pains, the bitter griefs of our lives, to God in prayer. We may be sure, too, that God will answer. If He does not relieve us of the suffering, He will strengthen us so that we can keep it, and still go on trusting and singing.
No doubt, much of our Lord’s Prayer was intercession. We have one or two glimpses of this interceding. He said to Peter in great sadness: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you that he might sift you as wheat; but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not.” There is a wondrous revealing of our comfort in this for us when we remember that as our Great High Priest He ever liveth to make intercession for us. Another instance of intercession was on the cross, when He prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Not His murderers only, but all men, were included in that prayer of redemption, as the sacrificial blood began to flow.
That last prayer of Jesus was, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” Thus His spirit went forth on the wings of prayer into His Father’s bosom. So it shall be with us, His friends, when we come to the edge of the great mystery, and cannot see the way. Dying, for a Christian, is but a flying away from earth’s passing things to be with God forever.
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