Praying a "Nevertheless'

“And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.” (Mr 14:36 AV)

 

In this prayer of our LORD, we see a perfect balance between God’s attributes and His decrees.  Indeed, all things are physically possible.  However, all things are not morally or ethically possible.  That for which our Savior prays is for another possibility by which the sins of mankind might be absolved.  Jesus Christ hates sin so much, the thought of taking them upon himself was repulsive.  Jesus knows He must endure the cup of God’s wrath for the sins of mankind.  It is that cup He wishes to replace with a better alternative.  He knows the Father is able and capable of doing this.  After all, it is the Father who created all things and possesses all power.  Surely, if it can be done, then God the Father can do it.  Nevertheless, the Father and Son determined before the world began the means of the redemption of mankind.  That redemption must include suffering the wrath of the Father.  Stating the truth of God’s omnipotence but balancing that truth with God’s decrees, is the proper way of approaching the throne of grace.

Like most children, when I was young I felt my dad could do anything.  There wasn’t any kind of fix I would get into which he could not resolve.  However, there were times when our situation demanded he specifically did not intervene.  There were times he pushed us beyond what we thought we could handle and did not cut short the experience.  There were other times he required of us something which was a deep heald value of his, and there was nothing we could do to dissuade him from that value.  One of those values was certain course selections during our High School career.  A senior in High School had much liberty in course selection.  However, my father required we take four years of math and science even if we could swap it out with an elective.  He allowed me to swap out chemistry for computer science (praise the LORD) but I was not going to forego science in my senior year and had to double up.  Even though my father could have relaxed his requirement, he did not.  He had the power to take away something he had predetermined.  Even though our grades might suffer, what he had decided was final.  When petitioning my father, we always had to have in the back of our minds that his word was final and we had better have the attitude of humility to accept what that decision might be.

This is the lesson our Savior is teaching us.  Even though God had the power to change something we desire for Him to change, this does not mean He will.  When Jesus raised the option, His humanity came in conflict with His divinity and sought an acceptable alternative to the wrath of the Father.  Knowing His Father could, did not mean that He would.  And in doing so, the Savior surrendered to the perfect will of the Father no matter how distasteful it might seem.  When we go to the Father and seek His intervention, do we keep in the forefront of our minds the reality it may not be the will of the Father to grant us our petition?  And if not, are we resigned to whatever the will of the Father might be?  When Jesus said, “nevertheless, not what I wilt”, He had totally resigned Himself to what the Father had already decreed.  This should be our attitude no matter the request.  We can seek God’s favor in one direction, but if God says no, we need to cheerfully accept it as it is.  The perfect will of God.