I am a Christian. I am also a Mormon. I am not interested in debating the fact that those two things go together. I just need to preface these thoughts with the foundational truth that I am a believer in Christ, because that is what this particular message is about. I am a highly imperfect Christian. I try every day to better live my life in such a way as to honor Him and His sacrifice for me. I fail miserably a large portion of the time. I am ever learning more about what that sacrifice actually was, and today in church there was a talk given about the Atonement, so I paid very close attention. Because I was feeling a particular sense of unrest about some things, I desperately wanted to hear something that would give me a measure of peace. It was not really a particular comment that stood out to me, but the story was told of when Christ asked his disciples to join him in the Garden of Gethsemane while he prayed about the staggering challenge he was about to face. He asked if they could just “watch with Him” for an hour.
This did not mean they had to experience what He was experiencing, or take part in any way. Just watch. Just stay awake. Just be there, looking His direction. For one hour. And they couldn’t do it. None of us could have. It was here where He took on the sins of the world. It was here where He descended below all things for each of us. That is far too monumental for any of us to comprehend on any level that would matter. Even if we were there, awake, and watching, we would have seen pain and had empathy, but it would not have been possible for any of us to know the true nature of His burden. Our burdens. Which He willingly took upon himself, so that we could have a chance at all. So that we could be forgiven of not lasting even an hour with Him.
It struck me as I was listening to this account today, (and certainly not for the first time) that this experience is recorded in the Bible to illustrate to us that He only asks an hour of us. This whole seemingly endless string of challenges we all have to face in life is really only a relatively brief moment in the grand scheme of things. Just an hour. And when we can’t make it the whole hour, He extends His hand and takes us the rest of the way. But we have to be looking His direction in order to see His outstretched hand. And then we have to reach out and take it. How hard is that, really? My hour has been feeling long lately, and while I am still struggling with a lack of peace, I at least know that if I am doing my best to “watch with Him”, He will take me the rest of the way.
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