My smart phone is smarter than me. It has a “Genius Button” that does whatever I tell it. If I say, “Call Mom,” it will ask, “Did you mean ‘Mom, Mobile’ or ‘Mom, Home’?” When I say, “Find Starbucks,” it navigates to the nearest barista. (It doesn’t work for “Find car keys.” And Genius Buttons are nowhere to be found on my husband, child, or washing machine.) Its Bible app has dozens of different translations, and the web browser whisks me to my favorite Bible study websites.
My phone taught me a few things when I used it recently during my morning devos. While the coffee perked, I read Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest. The daily reading hit me smack over the head —
“When it comes to taking the initiative against drudgery, we have to take the first step as though there were no God. There is no point in waiting for God to help us— He will not. But once we arise, immediately we find He is there.”
Most of us don’t have to look too far to find something we dread doing. Household chores top the list, we could all do with a few less toilets to clean. Paying bills rarely gives me glee. I dread going to the gym three times a week and figuring out a healthy meal three times a day. I’m being challenged in these areas as my Neighborhood Cafe studies Lysa TerKeurst’s new book, Made to Crave, and trains together for a 5K.
Something we once loved can become drudgery. Spending time with our spouses. Hanging out with our kids. Even the ministry that once inspired us can become a drag, weighing heavy on our hearts.
Please tell me you can relate. Or am I the only one who sits around daydreaming instead of obeying what God has asked? You may have noticed that God does not clean toilets. Some things are solely up to me.
Oswald gave a strange command in this daily missive: “Read John 13.” So I read John 13, and saw “the Incarnate God performing the greatest example of drudgery— washing fishermen’s feet.”
Jesus did it, but can I? He was, like, super-Christian. I’m just a girl, average at best.
Having had about all I could handle from ol’ Oswald, I picked up my Bible and flipped it open to a bookmark which just so happened to be wedged in Luke 22, a parallel passage to John 13. “OK, Lord,” I said. “You obviously want me to learn something here. Let’s see where You want to take this.”
The Blue Letter Bible website launched on my phone and I tapped in “Luke 22.” Six icons beside each verse link to related passages, a concordance, commentaries, images, different versions and dictionary aids. It’s a wonderful site, but the chances of landing on a small icon with a big finger are pretty slim. Squinting at the itty-bitty “C” for Concordance, I accidentally touched the teensy-weensy “D” for Dictionary beside Luke 22:44.
Hmm, I’d never used the Dictionary before. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia entry for “Agony” loaded, and my smart phone became the Holy Spirit’s tool as I read:
“The wrestling of the athlete has its counterpart in the wrestling of the suffering soul of the Savior in the garden… All that can be suggested by the exhausting struggles and sufferings of charioteers, runners, wrestlers and gladiators, in Grecian and Roman amphitheaters, is summed up in the pain and death-struggle of this solitary word ‘agony.’”
Jesus’ pushed through physical agony comparable to a runner in an exhausting race, an effort so excruciating He sweated drops of blood. I used the WikiMobile app to look up this phenomenon known as hematidrosis. It occurs when severe mental anxiety activates the sympathetic nervous system to invoke the body’s fight-or-flight reaction. Hematidrosis happens when a person is so profoundly afraid that every instinct demands they run away. Sweating blood weakens and dehydrates the body, making the skin tender and fragile—heightening the pain as Jesus’ robes were torn from Him, His back was scourged and His body crucified.
And, yet, I can’t even push through a workout DVD. I can’t push my way through an entire day of healthy choices. I can’t push myself past the bakery counter.
If you ever see me running, you’d better run, too, because there’s probably a fire.
When Jesus rose from His agonizing prayer, He found his followers and friends sound asleep.
Clicking through the little icons again, I learned that “sorrow” means pain, grief, annoyance, affliction or a “sour, reluctant mind.” My response to annoyance is often avoidance. “How much weight do I need to lose? Impossible! Why even try?” I overload my To Do list trying to get my head around it, but don’t put my hands to it. The only thing I actually accomplish is making the list! If Jesus returned today, he would find me sleeping with sorrow beside His disciples, so overwhelmed by the big things that I can’t do the little things.
Beautiful Jesus, His face wet with blood, sweat and tears, comes to me and rouses me from my daydreams. He shows me how this only-average-on-a-good day girl can follow His first-and-best example. Notice the similarities between verse 45 and 46:
- He rose from prayer (verse 45)
- He said, “Get up and pray” (verse 46)
Though translated differently in English, in the original language the Greek root words are the same: anistēmi and proseuchē. Get up and pray. It’s the only way to push through hard things. Get up from here and go somewhere else—and invite Me to come with you. Jesus did it, now you do it.
The writer of Hebrews elaborates on this scene in the Garden of Gethsemane so we can see the eternal implications of this evening:
While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God. Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. In this way, God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him.
Hebrews 5:7-9 NLT
Jesus learned spiritual obedience through His physical suffering. Jesus agonized physically, and was perfected spiritually.
I have tamed the emotional, I have been triumphant in the spiritual. But I have trivialized the physical to include only “good deeds” and “kind words” and thought of my “flesh” as merely my human nature. Could it be, as my Good Godly Girlfriends and I study how we are Made to Crave, that an intensely physical effort could impact my spiritual and emotional soul? Could it be that by exercising discipline, self-control, perseverance and wisdom in my body I could strengthen my discipline, self-control, perseverance and wisdom in other areas of my life?
Some things are solely up to me.
I have to eat my breakfast, but He is my bread of life.
I have to put on my running shoes, but He runs beside me.
I have to pay my bills, but He is my provision.
I have to knock on my neighbor’s door, but He tells me what to say.
From washing sweaty feet to sweating blood,
Jesus demonstrates that the physical,
emotional and spiritual are inseparable.
Oswald assures us,
“But once we arise, immediately we find He is there. Whenever God gives us His inspiration, suddenly taking the initiative becomes a moral issue— a matter of obedience. Then we must act to be obedient and not continue to lie down doing nothing.”
The daydream is over, girlfriends. It’s time to rise and shine!
Amy! I loved following your link to your blog. Luann Prater, who does the Encouragement Cafe radio show, and I looked at your site about six months ago and love, love, love it! I’m so excited that ya’ll are doing Made to Crave, and it’s awesome that you’re going to run together. Thanks for your visit!