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Apr 05, 2023 18:30pm

Holy Week: Prayer Matters

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(The following is a family devotional guide with suggested questions and scriptures.)

Talk Time

Do you pray? If so, what time of day do you try to pray?

Have you ever fallen asleep during prayers?

What is your favorite type of praying: journaling your prayers, saying them aloud, or saying them in your head?

How long do you typically pray?

What would prompt you to pray: when something good happens to you or when something bad happens to you?

What are some things you typically pray about?

Have you ever been asked to pray for others…and forgot to?

Bible Connection

After the Passover dinner was over, Jesus needed to pray. He knew the time of His persecution was near and He needed to go to a place in which He could be alone with God. The disciples followed Him, and before He left them to pray, He had a specific request for them.

Read about it in Mark 14:32-42. Pay close attention to what Jesus asked God in His prayer.

What a moment…the past three years, Jesus had been teaching His students and now, He was asking His students to watch and pray. He’d taken the closest to Him – Peter, James, and John – a little further into the Garden to be closer to Him. He needed His friends but sadly, they kept falling asleep. They failed Him in His hour of need.

Jesus was in such agony over His imminent death, He actually sweat blood (a condition called hematidrosis). Though Jesus knew His sacrificial death for all mankind was a part of God’s plan, He still experienced raw emotions of agony and anguish. He prayed that God would take this “cup of suffering” from Him. Though Jesus was human, He was also God and knew in painstaking detail what would happen to Him (John 18:4). He knew there would be an unjust trial, that people would turn against Him, that He would be flogged to the point of being disfigured (Isaiah 52:14), and that crucifixion (for which the word “excruciating” was derived) would be the punishment used to execute Him.

But, something happened as He continued to pray. Though Jesus’ prayer began with “Save me, Lord!”, it ended with, “Your will be done…not mine.” How did this happen? You see, in that moment, Jesus surrendered to God’s will and trusted Him. And, God strengthened Him to accept this “cup of suffering”. Not only did that give Him the power to face the cross, but His sacrifice on the cross gave us an eternal blessing: His death saved us from our sins and opened the door to a relationship with God.

Faith Connection

Sometimes when we pray a specific request, the answer is “no”. As hard as it is to accept this, we have to trust that God is allowing it for a deeper reason. It may not make sense at the time, but God calls us to walk by faith in those moments. Romans 8:28 says that God promises to work something good out of every detail of the lives of those who love Him. That’s why prayer is so important. The more we turn to Him in prayer, the more He can supernaturally strengthen and change our hearts to accept the hard circumstances and face it with faith.

Prayer is powerful, especially when we have a willing heart that trusts that God is working good from every detail in our lives. Turning to God, instead of away from God, can make all the difference in our lives and in our circumstances!