The Spirit Is Willing

People often use this verse as an excuse note. Someone has already decided how the evening is going to go, and the sentence arrives ahead of time to explain the failure: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. That is a fair complaint against it: a verse that explains a failure in advance ends up permitting it. We have used it like that, and we knew what we were doing, because we reach for it before the evening and almost never afterwards.

So look at who says it, and about whom. It is Jesus who speaks, in the middle of the night, about three men who could not stay awake for the one hour He asked of them. It is the worst night of His life. He has just told them, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." He goes away and prays three times, and each time He comes back they are asleep. Luke, telling the same scene, gives a reason nobody would have thought to make up: "he found them sleeping for sorrow." Grief had worn them out. And in the middle of His own agony, Jesus speaks up for them: "the spirit indeed is willing."

That is the hard part. The words belong to Him, and He is the one with the right to say them. We have been saying them for Him, about ourselves, ahead of time, on evenings that had no sorrow in them. And before He spoke of their weakness, He gave them something to do about it: "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." Both halves of the verse were mercy, His help before the trial and His kindness after it.

Lord Jesus, we have kept the second half of Your words and left the first. Teach us to watch and pray before the evening comes, and say the true thing about us tonight, whichever it is. When we fail, let it be You who speaks for us. You stayed faithful in the garden when Your friends could not, and You are faithful still. Amen.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 349 is Rock, Salvation, Defence (Psalm 62:2).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two