My Garden of Gethsemane

      My Garden of Gethsemane, what does that mean? If you had ask this question to me a month ago I'm not sure what I would have said. This is because now that it has happen to me I can't relate to my feelings I had before. Maybe I thought that kind of thing was only for Jesus to suffer through or to yield to the very will of the Father. Maybe I would have thought that I already had yielded everything to God. Maybe I thought I, just a man, could never totally give in to the perfect will of God. A Garden of Gethsemane experience doesn't mean we'll never sin again, the scripture is very clean that we don't have enough will power to resist sin in our lives. This is why we have the blood of Jesus and the forgiveness of God. A Garden of Gethsemane is not about death and being the savior of the world, although that is what it lead to for Jesus, but it is coming to a place willing to give up all thoughts and desires, surrendering to the perfect will of God. In the early years of my Christian life God told me of something that would take place in my life and when people spoke of death and possibly going to heaven at any time I believed I could not die at any moment because this thing had not happen in my life yet. I was almost to the place, whether it was faith or pride, that God could not take me to heaven because this thing had not yet happen. I felt, a little, even that if I was taken to heaven before this thing happen to me that I would be cheated.
      One night I sat alone in my living room mulling over my life and where I was spiritually when these chest pains came as they did many times before and I've been told they are just chest cavity muscle pain. As these pains were there I wondered if possibly they could be of a more serious matter. I thought what if they were, was I ready to go to the Lord in heaven. Up until that time I believed until this thing God promised was fulfilled in my life I could not die and leave the earth. That night I came to the place I was even willing to give that up and willing to yield to God's perfect will. I looked at all the things in my life I yet wanted to do, spiritual things and secular things. I looked at the family I had, the people I knew, the responsibilities I had and came to the place of yielding them all to God and if His decision was to take me home right then I was willing to go desiring His total will to be done in my life. There are many times in our Christian lives when we yield to the will of God but they are usually about one issue, and sometimes about many issues, but a Garden of Gethsemane is when we give up all giving God lordship over them, even those we thought we knew were His will for our lives. The Garden of Gethsemane is not an easy place to be. We think we have died to self before but that was only a partial death. The Garden of Gethsemane is a total dying of self, even of that very moment, to the will of God for His purpose. Jesus gave up everything in the Garden of Gethsemane. He had the right to be rescued by 12 legions of angels. He had the right to be addressed by all as Lord and King and obeyed as such. The demon world bowed to Him and mankind could have been made to also but that was not in the Father's plan. Jesus yielded to the will of the Father and went through some of the greatest agony and pain man has ever devised. He did it as a total yielding to the Father's perfect will and purpose.
      There was a freeing of some kind inside of me as I yielded to that perfect will of the Father. I am sure He in His time will show me what particular cross I must pick up to carry to accomplish that part of His perfect will He wants to do through me. Talk to God and find out about your Garden of Gethsemane. He wants all of us to arrive there seeking only Him and His perfect will in our lives.