Fall 2002
Thy Will be Done
Lindee Bingham

One time, while praying, I asked the Lord to teach me about what happened to Jesus while He was in the Garden of Gethsemane. I was aware that the Jesus which we see in the garden was unlike the accounts that we have of Jesus walking out His earthly ministry.

As the Holy Spirit overshadowed me, and began to teach me, I was devastated by what I saw. It changed me.

In no other place in Scripture we do we see Jesus crying out for help from man. He begged Peter, James, and John, to pray for Him. He tried to wake them up more than once, but any support they may have offered would have been but frail human help.

In the garden, Jesus was shook to the very core of His being, to a state of desperation. He was born on this earth as a three part being, just like us – spirit, soul, and body. All through His ministry, He walked fully surrendered to His Father. His spirit totally led Him and He was in agreement with the will of His Father.

In the Garden, we see this order of Spirit over soul and body, begin to flip flop. The “soul” houses the mind, which tells us what it thinks. The “will” tells us what it wants, and the “emotions” tells us what it feels. As Jesus faced the horror of separation from His Father, His soul began to rise up and recoil, and the challenge between soul and spirit became more and more intense.

In His mind, Jesus began to bargain, “Is there any other way?” For the first time, we see His “will” or what He wants, as being different from that of His Father. Emotionally, Jesus is being pushed to the very edge, “My soul is sorrowful to the point of death.” The burden was so great that drops of blood began to seep through His pores, and Jesus said, “please, let this cup pass from Me.”

What appeared to be the breaking point, all of a sudden, became the point of victory. Jesus spoke the words that changed the course of history. “Not My will, but Your will be done.”

What a lesson this is for us to learn. When we feel that we are at the end of ourselves, it is really the beginning. As we surrender, it becomes the “place” where God Himself takes us, and whisks us up into a higher dimension - above the clamor and destruction of the circumstances we face.

Now, we again see the Jesus that we saw walking through His earthly ministry – only made even stronger. “Not My will, but Yours” was the place where the victory was won, and Satan forever lost. From this point on, Jesus is so saturated with the power of God that the soldiers who came to arrest Him fell backwards to the earth at the words, “I am (is) He.”

When in the place of pressure, may we always yield and say, “Not my will, but Thy will be done.”