Another characteristic of Jesus’ prayer life was His incredible honesty. Outside of the Cross, one of the most common pictures that are placed in the chancel of a church is a picture of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Those two symbols—the Cross and the Garden are reminders of Jesus’ honesty in prayer. 

When He brought His disciples with Him to the Garden, He was distressed to His innermost being (Mark 14:32-33). In His agony, He seeks another way: 

 “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). 

 Jesus was expressing an honest tension inside of Him: I do not want to go through this and yet I want to follow your will in it. 

Another honest prayer comes from the Cross. Jesus cries out with words that fall on my ears in an unsettling way: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). Gone is the intimate reference to “Father,” replaced by the impersonal, “My God, My God.” There He hangs, pouring out His honest and deepest pain. 

God can be honored in honest prayers. You and I can be strengthened in honest prayers. In both of Jesus’ prayers, I see Him stronger afterward. In the Garden, He would leave His disciples saying,

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). 

 Do you hear His confidence in those words, “I have overcome the world”? He was already assured of victory because He had submitted to the will of His Father. Satan held nothing over Him. There was the suffering He had to face, of course, but the battle had been won for Jesus when He had in honesty poured out the tension within and submitted himself to His Father’s will.

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