Do we really get it?

I have had the opportunity to return back to my roots of nursing this weekend. Instead of teaching nursing, I returned to the bedside, to be Jesus to the ill. It was such a blessing. But my mind is tired. I have chosen to do the night shift once a week or so to "keep up with my skills" and so as I have awaken to this day, I am feeling a bit numb. This 44 year old body isn't use to this schedule change.

What an emotionally and spiritually draining weekend this Easter was also. I wonder if we need to be reminded daily of what Christ physically went through in His journey to the cross. Would it help us to "get it"? Would if help us to be more faithful, more devoted, more obedient to Him? In my devotional today I was taken to Mark 14: 35: "He went a little farther, and fell on the ground, and prayed".

The Blackaby's wrote in today's reading from 'Experiencing God Day-By-Day' that some Christians are satisfied with only having a surface relationship with Christ. I thought about our Easter morning church service. There were so many there. Families had gather together in the house of God, many came through the doors that cannot seem to make it any other time then the holidays and my heart breaks for them. Do they not get it? Can they not feel God's tug at their heart that says "Hey-I am here for you, I want you to get to know me. Let me love you!".

These authors then went on to describes Christ sacred prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. Though His followers had gone into this garden with Him, they were indifferent to His needs. They did not comprehend the urgency of the hour and the fact that Christ needed them and their support. They didn't get it and they were close enough to Him to touch His flesh and sense His emotions. "At the greatest moment of intercession in human history", Blackaby writes, "there was no one willing to go with Jesus and watch with Him". Jesus ended up praying alone in His anguish. In reading this, the Spirit's voice asked my heart, would I have been any different? Am I any different today? Oh, how I would hope that I would have been right beside Jesus, lifting Him up to His father praying "Abba, Father... everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will." (verse 36).

Would I have been willing to go with Him? Isaiah 59:16 states: "He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him". Am I willing today to yield everything to Him? Am I willing to go deeper in my prayer life with Him? Am I willing to sacrifice sleep to spend time in His word so that I might love Him deeper? Am I willing to serve Him with a servants heart?

"Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men.."

Ephesian 6:7

God, grant me a servants heart that I may serve wholeheartedly. Help me to take You into every moment of my life, to experience the sacredness of You as the angels experienced you in that garden on that night you said Yes to God, "Your will be done".

Let us not forget what Christ went through for us. I am tired from being up all night, I can only imagine where Christ strength came from as He walked out of that garden. Let us not turn our thoughts away from the physical and emotional suffering He endured so that we might have eternal life. Let not a day go by in which you are not grateful for the blood that leads to our redemptive grace. Get it! Live for Him! What more can we do because of what He did for us?

In His Graces~Pamela

PS--Ladies, if you want to be a "yes" lady for your Lord, I encourage you to go to my friend Lelia's blog-"Write from the Heart" (http://leliachealey.blogspot.com/) for a blog Bible study she is starting tomorrow from the book "What Happens When Women Say Yes To God" by Lysa TerKeurst. It is a life changing book and you can get it easily at most Christain book stores, Proverbs 31 Ministries (http://proverbs31.gospelcom.net/index.php) or amazon.com! Don't miss out!!