Today is the 32nd day of Lent, a 40 day season of spiritual reflection, repentance, and renewal. During these 40 days we’ll explore the prayer life of Jesus, walking chronologically through every mention of Jesus’ prayer life and prayers in the Gospels.
Here is today’s prayer event: 44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last (Lk. 23:44-46 ESV).
John Ortberg (The Me I Want to Be (114)) tells of being at a hotel swimming pool with his two daughters who were three and five years old. Before getting into the water, Ortberg gave his daughters a stern lecture about the danger of drowning. Then, while his five year old jumped into Ortberg’s waiting arms in the water, the three year old accidently slipped from the pool’s edge into the water. Within a second Ortberg grabbed the three year old and lifted her out of the water. And as the words of Ortberg’s lecture were still ringing in her ears, the three year old starting bawling: “I drowned, Daddy. I drowned.” “No you didn’t, honey,” Ortberg replied. “You didn’t drown. You were only underwater for a second.” The brief submersion was terrifying to her, but Ortberg knew she was always within reach of her father’s arms.
Jesus knows this truth. Though submerged in a deep and dark pool of suffering, he knows that he remains within reach of his Father’s hands. Jesus understands that though the circumstances may suggest that the Father’s hands have slipped, those hands actually still hold. Jesus is able to entrust himself into those reliable and ready hands.
Sometimes there is nothing we can do but trust that those hands still hold. We may not be able to change a thing about our situation. We may have no control over the source of our suffering. We may not be able to pause the pain. But one thing we can do: fall into the Father’s hands.
Is there something in your life which now seems endangered? A dream? A plan? A relationship? A desire? Picture it in your mind and then pray: “Into your hands, I commit my ______________.”
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“Lord, into Your hands, I commit my desire to control things, to complete a “to-do” list of spiritual practices, to grab onto things and people I love instead of letting go and letting You take care of them.”
Into your hands I commit my health.
Into your hands, Lord, I commit my future.
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