He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Matthew 26:39 (NLT)
Dink. Dink. Dink. Dink. That was the sound coming from my phone. I was in the ER. Earlier in the evening I went in and my symptoms were getting worse. Somewhere in the chaos I asked my husband to put me on the prayer chain. He did and the Dink, Dink, Dink was the response of the prayer warriors responding.
Shortly after my situation spiraled downward and I became critical. Honestly, I don’t clearly remember all that happened after that but I knew I was being lifted up and God was in the middle of it…..because of prayers. When I woke up the next morning (which is a PRAISE! in itself), I looked at my phone and there were all the text message responses of people answering the call of prayer. As I worked through all that had happened, those prayers gave me strength.
Today, as I pondered Good Friday and Jesus death on the cross, I realized that we could turn to him in prayer because the prayer he prayed in Gethsemane was not answered. God did not take the cup from him and Jesus did not turn back from his mission.
Humanly, he did not want to walk through what he had to walk through but he did. Because he walked through it, we can pray and know we are heard. Because he said “Yes” to the plan, we know that he loves us. We know he cares about us. We know that there is nothing he would not do to help us.
Today, I am especially thankful that because of Jesus’ death on the cross we can pray and know we are heard. I am praising His Name because there is no doubt in our minds that He hears us. None whatsoever. We know this because he prayed that prayer and when it wasn’t answered, He went to the cross anyway. For us.