Hear my prayer, O Lord;
let my cry come to you.
Do not hide your face from me
on the day of my distress.
Incline your ear to me;
answer me speedily on the day when I call…
My heart is stricken and withered like grass;
I am too wasted to eat my bread.
Because of my loud groaning
my bones cling to my skin.
I am like an owl of the wilderness,
like a little owl of the waste places.
I lie awake;
I am like a lonely bird on the housetop.
(from New Revised Standard Version)
Haven’t we all woken in the night and felt as though all the problems of the world were upon us. Every worry is magnified out of all proportion and we can find no solutions to anything. Even our prayers seem to go unanswered, and we feel completely and utterly alone.
In the last week of Jesus’ life he went to pray in the Garden of Gethesemene, leaving his disciples to watch and pray nearby. The description of his agony of mind says that “he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.” He knew that his death was approaching, one of the most terrible deaths that any person could suffer, yet in that moment of mental agony he says to God “yet not my will but yours be done”.
At these moments of real fear we should ask God to forgive us; hand all our problems to Him; and say “Yet not my will, but yours be done!”
Lord God,
when we feel alone and full of fear;
when our troubles have magnified;
when we can see no solutions to our problems;
help us to remember that you suffered such fear,
but you put your trust in your Heavenly Father.
May we have the faith and courage to do the same.
Amen.