I was so challenged by the post! I hope you are too!
~ Chad…
…Psalm 121:1-2
Rise, let us be going —Matthew 26:46
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples went to sleep when they
should have stayed awake, and once they realized what they had done it
produced despair. The sense of having done something irreversible tends
to make us despair. We say, “Well, it’s all over and ruined now; what’s
the point in trying anymore.” If we think this kind of despair is an
exception, we are mistaken. It is a very ordinary human experience.
Whenever we realize we have not taken advantage of a magnificent
opportunity, we are apt to sink into despair. But Jesus comes and
lovingly says to us, in essence, “Sleep on now. That opportunity is lost
forever and you can’t change that. But get up, and let’s go on to the
next thing.” In other words, let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the
sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go on into the invincible future
with Him.
There will be experiences like this in each of our lives. We will
have times of despair caused by real events in our lives, and we will be
unable to lift ourselves out of them. The disciples, in this instance,
had done a downright unthinkable thing— they had gone to sleep instead
of watching with Jesus. But our Lord came to them taking the spiritual
initiative against their despair and said, in effect, “Get up, and do
the next thing.” If we are inspired by God, what is the next thing? It
is to trust Him absolutely and to pray on the basis of His redemption.
Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.