Everyone has a Gethsemane. This is the time when everything in your natural mind wants to run away. You realize that the next few hours, months or years are out of your control and that the decisions you make today could change your life forever.
Every David has a Goliath.
Every Esther has a Haman.
Every Paul has a Jerusalem.
Every believer has a Gethsemane.
We fear the unknown. We fear abandonment. We fear surgeons, retirement, cancer, termination, divorce, long-term dysfunctional relationships and, for some, even intimacy.
We come to the realization that closing our eyes, walking the plank and jumping off, may result in not only a change in location, but also being in the belly of a beast. What can you do when you are in the belly of a beast? Nothing but pray.
We all have a natural response to change, loss, and pain. We fear.
But Jesus displayed the courage that we need. I’m so glad for the Gethsemane narrative because it reminds me that every step toward the unknown, toward death, toward loss is not something me are experiencing in isolation. We have a Savior that whispers, “Me, too.”
Gethsemane courage isn’t fearless courage. It’s not a stony, lifeless courage. It is blood-sweat courage. It is self-talking courage that admits, “I’m scared out of my brain but I will step out, step forward, and step closer to God’s plan.”
Narrow is this way that leads to life.
Lord Jesus, Son of God, why am I so afraid of life in it’s unmasked glory? I long to move toward You and yet I am so afraid of the cost, the faith, the trappings of glory without evidence through sight. Teach me to rely on You. Show me the deep and abiding warmth of radical courage— the kind of courage that refuses to trust in only those things that I can see with my eyes and yet remain a saboteur of true and living trust in You.
Somehow, we have become comfortable with the cross. The cross is not a place of comfort. It is a place of courage in the midst of excruciating consequence.
This work by Matt Tullos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International