Mark 14:36-39

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus pleaded. How do we know this? Because he kept going back and saying the same thing. In Mark 14:36, Jesus prays: “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Then, after he went back and found his disciples sleeping, Mark tells us in Mark 14:39, “[…] again he went away and prayed, saying the same words.” Did you get that? He was “saying the same words.”

Have you ever pleaded in prayer like that? Praying the same words over and over? Pleading in earnest, repetitive prayer, because the answer has not come yet? Because you do not like what the answer seems to be? Or simply because you do not know what else to do? Hospitals, court houses, prisons, refugee camps, recovery houses, military bases, orphanages, homes with lonely people, hurting people, and churches are filled with people pleading, pleading to God for some relief.

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