Mirror Jesus I

Mark 14:³⁵ “He went on a little farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by.”

It is a mistake to think that no one else understands what you are going through. A lot of us make this mistake because we look at our story and compare it with others. And because it is obviously different, we think that nobody will understand our story and we decide to hide our pain. The truth  is, no two people can have the same experiences in this life. Even if they go through the same thing, the experiences are always different. The truth is, there is one common denominator among all of us and that is pain. God expects and commands us to have people in our lives that we can share our pain with. And God commands us to listen to and bear other people’s pain.

I may not understand the dynamics of your pain, but I understand the pain because I have had my pain. So, I can sit with you and be with you through your pain. God shows us that the first thing to do in our days of pain is to reach out to friends. Some of us do not have Godly friends, Christians friends. If all your friends are people that will give you the opposite to God’s counsel, you are asking for trouble. If you do not have friends, join a life group (small group), start serving. Join a department in church, let people know you are in church. Make friends, it is not going to hurt you. It is only going to make you better.

We try to repress and suppress our pain. Meanwhile, God wants us to express our pain to one another and confess our pain to Him. This brings us to the second thing to do in the days of pain and that is to reach out to God. In the days of pain, the first thing you do is to reach out to friends, and the second thing is to reach out to God. Mark 14:³⁶ “Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (emphasis added). Jesus shows us three things that should be in place when we reach out to God. The first thing is to Affirm God’s Power. The Bible says, “he cried out, “everything is possible for you”. What Jesus was saying, in other words, was, ‘I know You can do all things and all things are possible with You’. Sometimes, we doubt God, we even doubt God’s existence. Jer.32:²⁷ (NKJV) “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?” (emphasis added).

Prayer (song): Ah Lord God, Thou hast made the heavens and the earth by Thy great power; Ah Lord God, Thou hast made the heavens and the earth by Thine outstretched arm… Amen!