Father if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will. But yours be done.

Jesus, Luke 22:42 NIV

During Holy Week I often think of Christ’s angst filled prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was checking to see if there was any way he could escape the suffering he was about to endure. He also deferred to what God had in mind at the same time.

I’m good at praying the first half of the prayer, usually saying something like, “don’t let bad things happen,” or the fancy version, “Keep me safe O God, for in you I take refuge,” (Psalm 16:1) The second half is more of a silent surrender, which is shorthand for, “You are God, perfect in love, knowledge and wisdom. What You are doing seems bad and mean, but my intellect is limited so Your will be done, I accept that which I cannot control because I know you are the embodiment of love.” Then I reiterate that I don’t want to suffer, just in case I haven’t emphasized that enough.

Right now the suffering is not a personal cup, but a World Cup. Besides sickness and death, much of the suffering is confusion and uncertainty about what is coming next. The image that has come to my mind as I think of this is the children of Israel leaving Egypt and wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. They, like us didn’t know where the danger was coming from next. Both then and now seem to be an opportunity to really develop faith.

Like The wandering Israelites, we can trust that God is with us through this suffering and uncertainty, or we can be stubborn and trust our confused and uncertain selves and suffer a great deal more, both mentally and physically. In both Gethsemane and in the wilderness, after praying that the cup passes, an acceptance of suffering and surrender to God can lead to peace and comfort in the midst of pain.