“Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” Jesus prayed this before surrendering to the fate of taking on the sins of the world.
On a walk this morning, I was thinking that, from what we see in Scripture, the hardest thing Jesus ever had to do wasn’t going to the cross, but surrendering His will.
Jesus prays that prayer three times. He had made the choice with His mind the first time…I don’t want to do this. Father, if there’s another way, take that route. But if this is what has to be, I want to do it Your way.
But it wasn’t settled in His heart. He had to pray it again. And again.
But He did get it settled and because He did, we can live free from the bondage of sin and in the power of His resurrection.
“Not My will, but Yours” was not about teaching us how to pray. This was Jesus wrestling over fully surrendering His will.
It was the hardest thing He ever had to do.
Is your will surrendered? We should live, like Jesus did, with a humble heart, a worshipful heart, a heart bowed before the Father. But where does your will want to go its own way? Where do you need to surrender?
Let’s apply this to parenting and homeschooling. Have you gotten ideas as to what your children should be when they grow up? That doesn’t have to mean doctor or lawyer, though it certainly applies to that as well. But what about your expectations for what your children should look and act like? What about your expectations for their future education and life path? Have you made goals taken from your own heart or from following the teaching of others?
Have you gotten ideas about what a family should look like and do from reading a book, a blog, watching videos, or just conforming to those around you?
Have you gotten ideas about what homeschooling should look like from others?
Have you surrendered your family, your parenting, your homeschooling to God? Are you willing to give up the image you are after for your children and family and seek only to be transformed into the image of Christ?
Take yourself, your family, your homeschooling, your habits, your attitudes, your ministries, your work, your dreams and goals, all of everything of who you are and that’s in your life, and surrender it up on the altar. Ask for His holy fire to come and consume or purify, either taking it away or consecrating it for His purposes.
His purposes are glorious and wonderous. What He accomplishes is eternal. What we do today only matters here and now unless the Lord breathes His life into it. Then it impacts forever.