more than conquerers - part 2.5

(continued...)

It's a really scary feeling when you look around one day and realize that you're running this race alone. That there is no one you can count on but yourself - that you may be able to ask for help, but there is no one who will volunteer without having been asked, or who you can ask freely without feeling guilty or demanding, that there is no one training beside you, no net to catch you if you fall.

Such is life - changes happen, priorities and circumstances shift, and people move on. It's not personal - it just...is. It's a rather bizarre coincidence that the closest people to me all seem to have exited at once, but...there we have it.

So how does this make me more like Jesus?

Surely Jesus understood loneliness more than anyone else. Surely Jesus understood disappointment. When I think about the Garden of Gethsemane account in Mark, it reminds me that despite being divine, despite having a relationship with the Father that was the way it was supposed to be - Jesus needed friends. That in his time of sorrow and loneliness, in his time of preparation for the daunting calling before Him - he needed the support of his closest friends. So He took James, John, and Peter up to the mountain with him and told them to keep watch while He prayed.

But they failed Him. Not understanding what was happening, not seeing the distress on His heart, they fell asleep.

Man, if I was Jesus I'd be pretty upset. It's like, hello, I need a little support here because I'm about to die a humiliating death to save you fools, and you can't even stay awake? I'm sure He was annoyed. You could tell in the way He rebuked them. But somehow...it wasn't personal. There was no bitterness. If anything, I think He was sad that they still didn't get it. In the end, He didn't necessarily get the support that He had desired. But nonetheless, He did what He came to do.

I'm not entirely sure how this makes me more like Jesus. Perhaps it's in staying focused on the goal at hand, despite the ultimate setback of going at it alone. Perhaps it's in learning to give grace instead of harboring bitterness in the circumstances. Perhaps it's in being humble enough to know that you need others, even if they have or will let you down (intentionally or unintentionally). Or perhaps it's staying focused on the purpose, regardless of circumstance.

I wish I could give some inspirational conclusion...but I don't know. But it's been an interesting exercise, and a good excuse to study Mark 14. I don't think I have the answer...but I hope that in beginning search for it, I'll understand how it's shaping me.