Praying against temptation

After Jesus had the Passover dinner with His disciples (which we now remember as the Last Supper), He went to the Mount of Olives to pray, and told His disciples to pray also, that they might not succumb to temptation. But they didn't pray. He prayed in such agony of spirit that, according to the gospel of Luke, His sweat became like drops of blood; Matthew says He was deeply distressed and sorrowful. After all, He knew what was about to happen! Because He desired to obey His Father's will, however, even more than He wanted to avoid the suffering into which He was about to surrender Himself, He prayed, fervently and earnestly.

A little ways off, His disciples slept. They didn't sleep simply because they were tired and out late and didn't realize the distress that Jesus was in: Luke tells us that they slept from sorrow. He had just told them at dinner that He would be betrayed, and suffer, and die; that He would leave them; and that one of them, Peter, would deny Him at the moment of truth. And so although they didn't fully understand what Jesus was talking about - their responses to Him in the book of John make that clear! - they could certainly tell that something was wrong, and that something great and dreadfully sad and painful was forthcoming. So sleep offered them a welcome escape from the sorrow and the bewilderment. Instead of having to wrestle with their worries and fears, with all that they didn't understand, and with Jesus' obvious sorrow and ominous warnings, they could rest in peaceful oblivion. I'm sure it seemed like a good solution - the easiest choice, the most pleasant path.

But because they slept at that moment, they didn't pray. And because they didn't pray, then, in the empty moments before the Pharisees and priests came with their servants and guards to take Jesus away, their hearts and minds were not prepared, not fortified by faith, to endure the fear and sorrow to come. They did not pray, as Jesus had taught them, for God to keep them from temptation - and so when temptation came, they fell. What seemed like the easy road, the escape from pain, ended up leading them into even more sorrow and pain. Peter runs into the night alone, bitterly weeping, not just for the arrest and imminent death of his Lord, but for his own denial of his Lord and friend.

It made me wonder how often I've chosen to pursue an escape or distraction instead of praying - how frequently I simply try to avoid the worries and the sorrows of life by ignoring them, instead of facing them head on in prayer and seeking the strength and the grace of God to help me deal with them - as well as how often that choice not to pray has resulted in sin, as it did for Peter. For the world is full of paths that promise an escape, that offer peace and happiness without the unpleasant task of coping with and fighting the pains and sorrows and fears of reality. I know I've used Facebook, Pinterest, blog-surfing, and even programming to numb or ignore feelings I don't want to deal with, instead of taking them to God with prayer and supplication; lest you think technology is the prime foe, I can tell you that I've done the same with books, homework, and projects - anything that distracts the mind and heart from the real issue can work. It doesn't seem like a bad thing to find peace in these distractions, and it probably isn't always a bad thing. But when it takes us away from prayer, when it leads us to seek peace and comfort in anything other than God, when it leaves us in a happy drugged stupor at the moment the trial comes, instead of strengthened in faith and prepared to hold fast to God - then it is a bad thing, leading to increased sin and multiplied sorrow.

So let us pray! Let us learn from Jesus and His disciples (as positive and negative examples, respectively), and pray in the midst of the worries and sorrows of life, the bewilderment and the suffering, that we may not enter into temptation, but may be protected against sin and strengthened for righteousness.