“Going a little farther, He fell facedown and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.””MATTHEW 26:39 · BSB · READ THE CHAPTER →Gethsemane, “oil press”
The night before the cross, Jesus led His disciples across the Kidron Valley to a garden on the Mount of Olives called Gethsemane. The name means oil press. It was a place where olives were crushed.
Olives give up their oil under pressure. They were crushed beneath a heavy stone, then pressed again under heavier weight, then pressed again. The finest oil lit the lamps of the temple. Nothing of value came out of an olive until it was pressed.
In that garden Jesus was pressed. Luke, the physician, tells us His sweat fell like great drops of blood. Mark records Him crying Abba, the intimate Aramaic word for Father, in the same breath that He asked for the cup to pass. He was not pretending. He felt the full weight of what was coming. And then He said the words that turned the world: “Yet not as I will, but as You will.”
Your Gethsemane is wherever your will and God's will meet head-on. It is not a sin to feel the pressure. Jesus did. It is not a sin to ask for another way. Jesus did. The question is the last sentence. Will you say, “Yet not as I will”?
What came out of Jesus' crushing was salvation for the whole world. What God brings out of your crushing will give light to others. Surrender is never wasted pressure.
- Where is your will pressing against God's right now?
- Have you been honest with God about how you really feel?
- What would your “yet not as I will” sound like if you prayed it today?
Pray Jesus' prayer out loud over your hardest situation: “My Father, if it is possible… yet not as I will, but as You will.”
Show up at the altar on the days you feel nothing. That's where the fire falls.