36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” 39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” 40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” 43 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. 44 So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. 45 Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples went to sleep when they should have stayed awake, and once they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of having done something irreversible tends to make us despair. We say to ourselves, “Well, I’ve really screwed up this time; what’s the point in trying anymore.” If we think this kind of despair is an exception, we are mistaken. It is human nature.
When we realize that we have not taken advantage of, or feel we have mishandled, a magnificent opportunity, we are likely to sink to our feelings of regret and despair. But Jesus comes and lovingly says to us, in essence, ‘Move on now. That opportunity is lost forever and you can’t change that. But get up, and let’s go on to the next thing.’ In other words, you are forgiven, let the past be the past and let us go on into the invincible future with Christ.
There will be haunting missed and mishandled opportunities like this in each of our lives. We will have times of despair and regret caused by real events in our lives, and we will be unable to lift ourselves out of them. The disciples, in this instance, had done a downright unthinkable thing – they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus. But our Lord came to them taking the spiritual initiative against their despair and said, in effect, Get up, and do the next thing.
What is the next thing in your life? Is it to trust God absolutely and to pray on the basis of His redemption? If its not, then it should be, because you never want to let the sense of past failure defeat your next step. Be LIFTED by what God has for you, next!