Thoughts for another day

July 28, 2009

Today's verse: Mk. 14:38. Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak. (KJV)
(Pls. read the above before you read further. Thanks)

I have come to understand through a series of happenings in my life this saying of Jesus: ‘The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.’ Oh, the desires of the flesh…eating, drinking, dressing up, carnal lust and the list goes on. Really, we are so beset with scores of attention riveting items of and for our body which ironically is one day going to rot. And honestly, try as I might, I’ve made hardly any headway in controlling the passions and the indulgences that engage the flesh!

The scars on the soul are mostly wrought through the ‘inways’ of the flesh and in that context, God understands us well and gives us this advice: Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. You know, bulk of our prayer, if at all we pray that is, is directed toward inane and meaningless requests and entreaties. But Jesus tells us, Watch…and pray that you enter not into temptation. Jesus Himself might have been tempted oftentimes; the Bible gives us an instance after He was hungry having fasted forty days and nights. He had one weapon against temptation and that was prayer. Reading the Word reveals how much stress He laid on prayer which is why He went early mornings up the mountain to pray.

So it brings me to the premise of our verse: Watch and pray. This is to remind me today and everyday that I need to do exactly that – watch and pray. Not that I may achieve great recognition and fame but that I pray the Lord keep me away from temptation thereby helping me remain in a state of holiness, through which state alone I can one day behold my Blessed Maker and my glorious Master and perhaps say, ‘Hello’ face to face I mean.