There are some of you struggling right now with things that you know you need to do, but you don’t want to do. You’re looking for a way out, a way to get around those things, to avoid them, but you know in your heart of hearts that there is no avoiding them, and that you’ll have to deal with them head-on in order to get them over with.

Jesus felt the same way in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was crucified. He didn’t want to have to deal with being physically tortured and then crucified. He really didn’t. In fact, he begged his dad (God) to find another way to reach the same end, but there was none. He had to suffer because that was what he’d signed up for, and that’s what the job called for. (more…)