Our Lord YAHSHUA’S prayers to the Father came to Him in deep sorrow of His soul. One, while in the Garden of Gethsemane, before His trials. He prayed, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet, not My will , but Yours be done; and being in an agony [of mind], He prayed more earnestly and intently, and His sweat became like great clots of blood dropping down upon the ground” (Luke 22:42,44); Before then, He confessed to the disciples the agony of His soul by saying, “My soul is very sad and deeply grieved, so that I am almost dying of sorrow” (Matt.26:38). Another prayer was uttered while He hanged on the cross: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? While the sun’s light faded or was darkened; the curtain of the temple was torn in two, He cried with a loud voice, saying, Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit! And with these words, He expired” (Luke 23:45-46). Redemption completed- IT WAS FINISHED! His voice echoed through Jerusalem with the message of salvation for the nations.
Time and time again, we are faced with emotional and physical pain; time and time again, we direct our attention to our heavenly Father to be alleviated from it, but many times, as Job suffered God’s silence, we go through it too. A silence which causes doubt weakening our faith. The Prophet Jeremiah was a weeping prophet. He suffered much in the hands of his own people, who would not receive his message of warnings from the Lord and they tried to kill him several times. In his trials, he said, “(God) You have bereaved my soul and cast in off far from peace; I have forgotten what good and happiness are; and I say, Perished is my strength and my expectation from the Lord. [O Lord] remember my affliction and my misery, my wandering and my outcast state. The wormwood and the gall. My soul is continually in remembrance and is bowed down within me.” (Lam. 3:17-20). We too have many complaints we take to the Lord, as our soul waits for answers to our prayers. However, there is yet room to remember the past goodness of our God toward us, as Jeremiah did in the midst of his complaints: “But this I recall and therefore have I hope and expectation: It is because of the Lord’s great mercy and loving-kindness that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning, great and abundant is your stability and faithfulness” (Lam. 3:21-23). The Word of God instructs us saying, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and supplication and thanksgiving continue to make your wants to God. And His peace will guard your heart and mind in Messiah YAHSHUA. For the rest, brethren whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on these things” (Phil. 4:6-8). A guideline that will unite our spirit with the Holy Spirit, bringing comfort and hope to our soul, even when not yet seeing the results to our prayers. YAHSHUA’S twice agonized in his trials: the first time in the garden and the second time, at the cross. There is some place out there where we must meet with our Savior alone to cry our hearts out to Him. YAHSHUA’S prayers of the moment were not answered, because the divine purpose was for Him to suffer in order to redeem the human race. He knew that He must go through it, so, He prayed, “Not My will, but Yours be done.” There was no other way for the human race to be redeemed. We do not know the hidden will of God for our trials, so, we must adopt YAHSHUA’S submission to His will. The Apostle Paul three times called upon the Lord and besought relieve and begged that his trial might depart from him; but YAHSHUA said to him, “My grace is enough for you; for My strength and power are made perfect and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Paul’s answer was, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ may rest upon me!” (II Cor. 12:8-9).
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither your ways are My ways, says the Lord; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isa. 55: 8-9). Realizing our limited knowledge of the future, our desire must be God’s desire for us. We must submit to the sufficiency of God’s grace, as did the Apostle Paul, no matter the difficulties we are going through, no matter how long have we prayed without an answer, no matter if the prayer was not answered according to our desire. Let’s remember, His thoughts and His ways are higher than our thoughts and ways. His plans for our lives are perfect in the accomplishing His will for us. At the end of the road we can say, “It was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes” (Ps. 119:71).
Light from the Word 