Asleep At The Wheel
Then, accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives. There he told them, “Pray that you will not give in to temptation.”
He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him. He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.
At last he stood up again and returned to the disciples, only to find them asleep, exhausted from grief. 46 “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation.” Luke 22:39-46
I love driving. I have driven from Michigan to Texas and Florida on one- and two-day rides. A part of me loves being on the road since I was little and my mother and father drove me places. From there, I imagined what various trips and cities would be like and what the journey would look like. While my love for driving places is obvious, there are also certain fears I have. The greatest one is falling asleep while still driving. In fact, part of why I tend to always drive is that when I was resting with someone else driving, I dreamed I fell asleep at the wheel, and woke up in a panic. So needless to say, that is a thing.
In our journey of faith, we travel many roads figuratively. Some of the time, the roads can be tricky to navigate, and whether through prayer, wisdom, guidance, or other means, we get through them. If we do it enough, it can lead us toward having a sense of comfort and ease. These are dangerous times in our journey because while there are times we rely on God for comfort particularly in times of grief, we must also be wary of when the very comfort we seek becomes a place where we can become complacent and lose focus. Dare I say we ourselves may be falling asleep at the wheel, and our spiritual growth becomes stagnant. What are we to do?
God wants us to have continual spiritual growth and never become too comfortable. In reading these verses, I tended to focus on Jesus and His praying to God. In fact, one of my favorite verses comes from today’s passage where Jesus says, “Yet I want your will to be done, not mine,” and noting the intensity of His prayer. And after He is done, He comes from the Mount of Olives to find the disciples sleeping. Yes, there was a reason for their sleep, which was exhaustion, but note what Jesus implored them to do. His focus was on prayer to not give into temptation. This was the second time He asked them to do this. My struggle with these verses are why would they fall asleep when they were with their teacher, who they knew was the Messiah? The answer is simple. We all have moments where we love God and yet ‘fall asleep’ to Him. We get comfortable in our faith, and our actions do not have either significance or meaning. We are in essence going through the motions. This of course is not where we need to be, and perhaps, that was why Jesus urged them to wake up and pray to not give into temptation. We all must rest, but what Jesus warned us and the disciples of is complacency. Complacency is not directly a sin, but it most certainly will lead to it. Thus, it is important we continually ask ourselves where we are with God and if we are in a state of growth or becoming stagnant.
Growing with God is something that is neither easy nor meant to be comfortable. Growth is meant to both challenge and stretch us. Jesus said, “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed?” (Luke 9:25) The world is filled with things that make us comfortable, but they are temporary and can distract us from focusing on God. God understands we are not perfect, and yes, we will often fail. But growth is not about us being perfect. It’s about us learning more about who God is and how our love for Him can continually grow. Let us push ourselves to change our routines and be willing to be uncomfortable for the sake of our own spiritual growth. Where has your faith become stagnant? Are there areas in your walk of faith where you are too comfortable? My prayer is that we are aware of our spiritual growth and not fall asleep at the wheel. Amen.