To Never Pray For Again
"While he was still speaking..." Matthew 26:47
The time was then. The need was dire. The future was looming. Jesus begged his disciples to watch and pray with him as perhaps the most gruesome spiritual battle was fought on the ground of Gethsemane. As bloody sweat fell from Jesus’ body, the disciples could have fallen on their faces alongside him and prayerfully partook in a moment that all of salvific history hinged on. They had the opportunity to commune with God, for the God Man, on behalf of all men.
Instead, they fell asleep.
How many fathoms deep is your list of squandered moments in which you went prayerless? How many struggles and trials have passed you by in which you cast more words into the night than you have before your Father? That trial you’re in; that season you’re wrestling with; that seeming need yet to be met; there will come a time when those struggles are over and so will your opportunity be to live it with your Savior.
Should this break your heart? Should we cherish those moments we get to weep with unsatisfied requests before our Father who listens? Perhaps we don’t value the unanswered breath that passes through the entrance into the throne room enough.
This may sound silly and overly nostalgic, and it may very well be. But it is a greater possibility that we do not treasure the unique phenomenon that God has given us this side of eternity - the chance to seek, knock, wait, watch, and ask.
In glory, what will we want that we won't already have? What will we desire that our fingertips cannot reach out and touch? Unmet longings will be held by the arms of the distant past, and we will never get to experience them again.
“But that is good!” you say. “That’s one of the best things about heaven!”
True, but isn't there something precious about not having something, be it a dream, hope, person, health, thing, experience, or desire of any kind, and going before your Father about it with empty hands? Those moments spent wishing, hoping, begging, knocking, all because he told us we could: there is something special amidst the pain.
For our Lord tastes different when we come to him wanting something else. Our Lord looks different in the light of comparison. Our Lord sounds different when the noise of desire and our own hearts battle for the stage. When we learn to go to him with our smallest requests and our deepest needs, we are proving that He is the deepest of them all. Don’t take for granted the privilege of talking to your Father about something that hasn’t happened yet, for the next moment is coming, and you don’t know what it holds.
Oh Lord, may I never take for granted every moment of prayer at my disposal. May I cherish the joy it contains. May I love how special it is to pray to you about things that I will one day never pray about again.
How sweet that is. Change my heart and every taste bud to know that deeply and truly and forever.
In Jesus’ name
Amen
