Pastor's Reflection for the day

No matter how hard we labor in our devotion and spiritual discipline, we will never experience the full peace and joy of God's presence until we take the final step of total self-surrender to God's will. We can see the perfect example of this level of moving beyond self in Jesus as he struggles in the garden of Gethsemane. But what we may not immediately comprehend in our reading of this Scripture passage is the presence of God's grace that enables Jesus to move beyond every desire of his own flesh so that humankind can be reconciled to God. We see Jesus sweating blood. We hear Jesus asking for the cup to be removed from him. We watch Jesus chastise the sleepy disciples for not being able to stay awake with him. We can even imagine the anguish of Jesus in the damp coolness of the garden night. But to fully understand the significance of the human struggle in that place, we must recognize the presence of God's grace that enabled Jesus to move totally beyond self to perfectly exhibit, "Not my will, but yours be done?"