Seven-Mile Miracle by Steven Furtick

Author:Steven Furtick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2017-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

Under Pressure

Jesus knew ahead of time what he was going to suffer on the cross and, humanly, he dreaded it. His horror at what he faced rose up and overwhelmed him when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night he was arrested. He was in such anguish that his sweat became like drops of blood.2

Honestly, this scene in the garden isn’t easy for us to read about, much less for Jesus to actually have gone through. But if we want to understand our Savior and follow in his footsteps, we’ve got to face it.

My wife hates watching scary movies. Also, what I consider almost a comedy, she categorizes as scary. She also happens to be very jumpy and grabs me during every scary scene. I rather enjoyed this when we were dating, but for some reason, it’s lost its charm after fifteen years of marriage.

Holly will look at me in those moments of dramatic tension and ask, “Can we please skip this scene?”

My response is always the same. “No, ’cause this is the scene that’s going to set up the rest.”

The scene in the Garden of Gethsemane sets up the scene on the cross and the Resurrection that follows.

As Jesus prayed in the garden and sweat drops of blood, I think he must have been anticipating the abandonment of all of those who had promised they would go to death with him, those he had fed and cared for and taught. But more than that, he must have been anticipating the greatest moment of agony that anyone could ever experience—separation from the source of life, God himself.

In the garden, Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.”3 In other words, I don’t want to be abandoned. I don’t want to be separated from you. Not even for a moment.

But he also said something else that you and I need to get in our spirits as we continue this journey: “Yet not as I will, but as you will.”4

Our will would be to never go through suffering or feel as if God were far away. His will might be to lead us through dark seasons when we have to grope our way forward by faith. And this is when we have to make a call: Will we trust his will, or will we waste our time whining in an attempt to get our own way?

The name Gethsemane, the hillside where Jesus often went to pray, means “olive press.”5 I think it’s significant that the Bible says Jesus prayed in the place of the olive press, because the only way you can get oil from an olive is to press the olive. The anointing of God is only produced under pressure.

There’s a great word of application here as we think about our own experience of apparent forsakenness. If we trust God, he’ll take us through this valley of the shadow of death, and the green pastures on the other side will be worth whatever we’ve gone through.

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