Not only have I been working with my two boys in preparing them for Easter, but I too have been preparing my heart for the most important holiday on the Christian calendar. This preparation is an intensified time of dwelling on the sacrifice Christ made for us on the cross. Like Moses, who along with the elders, who spent a week in spiritual preparation before meeting God on the mountain and like the Israelites who prepared the week before celebrating feasts such as the Festival of Booths, we too need time of spiritual cleansing. As soil is ploughed to prepare for planting seeds, so too our hearts need ploughing to prepare for what God plans to do in our hearts this Easter.

In the Old Testament, much of the spiritual preparation the Israelites did had to do with their physical cleanliness, ensuring purity from exposure to anything unclean. Through prayer and time in the word, we need to have our hearts cleaned asking God to “create in us a clean heart and renew a right spirit” in us. We want hearts softened, able to soak up the ”Living Water” that comes from the word of our Savior. We need to be emptied of what distracts us from Jesus so we can fill up on him alone . The more we focus and prepare, the more we seek to understand the sacrifice, the cost, the passion, and the more we seek Jesus, the more our faith can deepen and our love for Christ can grow.

In addition to reading through the gospels this Lent season, I’ve been reading a few books that have been helping me in this heart preparation:

The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A Fragile Stone: The Emotional Life of Simon Peter by Michael Card

Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter by Nancy Guthrie

When Moses and the elders ascended the mount to be in the presence of the Lord, they saw the Lord and “under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.” (Ex. 24:10,11) May we anticipate seeing the beauty and wonder of our Savior as we prepare for Easter. May we be filled, renewed, strengthened, awed, and fed by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peter was one of Jesus’ closest friends. When Jesus first met him, he told Peter that his name would change from Simon to Peter because he would become “a rock.” But for that to happen, he had to go through a great deal of refining to become the man Jesus called him to be. Shortly before Jesus was arrested, Jesus told Peter that Satan wanted to have him to “sift him like wheat” but Jesus said that he had prayed for him. (Luke 22:33) Jesus said, “And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” Jesus told him that he would deny him three times before the rooster next crowed. And he did.

After the resurrection, Jesus restored him. He met Peter where he had gone to grieve, at the lake where he always fished. He asked him three times if he loved him, three times Peter said yes. He was restored to Jesus completely. And we know the rest of the story, Peter went on to be instrumental in starting the church. He became the stone, the rock Jesus told him he would be. What strikes me is that Jesus told Peter that after he went through that trial of denying him, he was to strengthen his brothers. It was a given that he would use the experience he went through to help others. Could it be that when we suffer some sort of trial, we too are called to use that experience to “strengthen your sisters?”

For Peter to do that, he would have had to be transparent about his trial. He would have had to tell his fellow disciples about how he rejected Jesus. About the shame he felt when Jesus looked him in the eye when the rooster crowed that third time. And then about what Jesus did to heal him. And we know he did tell them, for it’s written for us in the gospels.

How often do we hold on selfishly to a trial we’ve been through, keeping it to ourselves rather than sharing the work God did in and through us?

How often out of guilt or shame do we keep it to ourselves rather than show others what God can do with messed up sinners like ourselves?

It can’t be about us, in the hiding or even in the sharing, it can never be about us. It’s about Him. It’s Jesus who prays and intercedes for us. It’s He who forgives, heals, and restores. Anything we share should point to Him. Like the moon reflects the sun, we have no light of our own, we reflect the light of Christ living in us.

Trust can be a barrier to telling our stories. We have to trust in prayer that God will use our stories of encouragement to do just that, to encourage.

What story can you tell today?

One of the hardest things for me is letting go of my will. To be a Christ follower, we know that part of being his disciple is following Christ wherever he leads us. Having our own way and our own plan often gets in the way. I’ve had different plans for my life and each time it contradicted God’s plan for me, it created great turmoil in my soul. I often fight against his will and think I know a better way but Paul tells us in Romans that “all things work together for the good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8:28) Our Father knows what is good for us and ensures that all things will happen for our good.

Jesus has paved the way for teaching us how to let go. The bible said that Jesus is not unfamiliar with the temptations and struggles we face in this life. In the garden of Gethsemane, we can see Jesus’s humanity as he struggled with the sacrifice he was about to make. Jesus had gone into the garden with the intention of praying because his ”soul was sorrowful, even to death.” (Mark 14:34) He prayed three times for God to take the cup of suffering from him and each time he said, “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” He was so grieved and distraught that he began to sweat drops of blood. He knew the plan of redemption was the only way, yet the road to Calvary was a burden so heavy that he had to cry out to the Father. He wasn’t going to stop the plan, he needed strength from his Father to carry it out. And for our sakes, he submitted to the will of his Father.

Jesus shows us the process of letting go and trusting the Father. It’s not an easy thing to do, it certainly wasn’t easy for our Lord but it was necessary for if he had not done his Father’s will, we would not have salvation from our sins. I think that the main thing we can learn from his time in the garden is the importance of prayer. When we are struggling with letting go of our own will, it is essential that we are in prayer. He said to his sleeping disciples “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mark 14:37) We need to be watchful and on guard against temptation. We need to pray. We must pray.

Jesus in his sorrow, fell on his face in prayer. I believe that we need to fall on our face before God and tell him how weak our flesh is. We need to tell him that we are struggling to let go of our own will. And in all things, we need to be submissive to the Father’s will.

The last thing I think is significant about Jesus’ time in prayer is that it strengthened him. He entered the garden sorrowful but exited determined to carry his cup of suffering. Praying gave him strength to then go willingly with the soldiers who had come to arrest him.

And prayer strengthen’s us to let go of our plans and follow him.