In my many years of dealing with people in adversity, I have seen that to suffer is exhausting work. People in pain physical or emotional, often fall asleep exhausted at night, and during their waking hours find that their energy level is very low. Such is the hard work of suffering.

The disciples of our Lord were in Gethsemane with Jesus and it was late at night. They were tired from the long day just passed. Jesus had dropped off eight of the apostles near the Garden entrance and went further in with Peter, James and John.

It is recorded in Mark 14:33-34 that Jesus began to be dreadfully troubled and distressed as He was alone with these three men. Mark 14:40 tells us that they did not know what to say to Jesus concerning His terrible agony that they witnessed. Instead of helping Jesus, they fell asleep several times.

Luke tells us in our verse that Jesus’ sorrow in prayer seemed to crush the very life blood out of His body such was His agony about His impending death. It is clear from witnessing the exhaustion of the three men and the phenomenon of Jesus’ sweat, that the business of suffering is something that saps the energy and lifeblood, as it were, from a person.

On those occasions when I have conducted the funeral of a young child I have come home terribly exhausted and wish only to escape the scene I just saw by sleeping. The mental and spiritual weight of the funeral service and ministering to the family and friends overwhelms me every time. As a helper to the main people in the drama my sorrow cannot be as heavy as theirs, so if I am exhausted, what about them?

Anyone who makes light of a person in grief has no compassion and no heart for dealing with others. I have witnessed some callous comments by the “friends” of people in pain and it is so tragic that they cannot keep their mouths shut if they do not know what to say.

If you are weary of your situation, you are in good company. Jesus was crushed under the weight of His burden and it showed to all who saw Him. You may at least take comfort in the idea that you are only being normal in feeling this way. Life’s difficult alternatives can be exceptionally heavy to bear and easily cause us to collapse under the weight of them.

Hence the biblical expression, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” Deuteronomy 33:27 (NIV) When life gets to be too much for the believer, the Lord Himself carries His child along. This is His promise. We need to come to Him and call upon Him to perform what He has promised.

When we pray to the Lord we move the arm of omnipotence. Exercise your family privilege today and seek the face of your Father in heaven.

One very special person that I visit from time to time has looked at life from a wheelchair for almost all of their life. It brightens my day to spend time in the home and realise this person is a faithful follower of Jesus and prays for my ministry regularly. I marvel at the grace and poise of this individual knowing the limited mobility that is their life.

How can someone faithfully stay on course through life when they are not able to drive a car, go out when they wish, need a home care giver who comes in to help them get in and out of bed each day and so on? This person has been given a special portion of grace to cope, each day.

The man in our verse, Elijah, had just come from a wonderful event where he had demonstrated the miraculous power of God to some heathen people (1 Kings 18). The victory clearly proved that Jehovah was God. Elijah should have rejoiced but instead became frightened of a Phoenician princess named Jezebel who threatened him with death.

What we see in the little drama as it unfolded is that sometimes we can have a spiritual victory over some evil and then suddenly fall and lose confidence in the Lord. Elijah represents many people who may have been fine Christians for years and years. Then when things have been really good for so long, something happens that totally ruins their happy situation. They do not rise to the occasion, but rather stumbled and wished to die as Elijah did.

There are many of us who have had the good life for a long time and then tragedy strikes and we are not prepared to accept the difficulty. We flounder as the great prophet Elijah did so many centuries ago.

The person I referred to in the wheelchair was born with the medical condition that put them in that situation. Sometimes it is easier to never have an ability than to have it taken away after years of enjoying it. Nevertheless it does not matter when the adverse situation comes to us we may call on the Lord to help us.

Elijah had the wrong solution to his problem. Simply wanting to die and end the suffering was not the plan the Lord had for him. Elijah would rise to work for the Lord another day.

Whatever your situation today, I pray that you will have grace to seek the Lord and determine what He is going to do for and with you in the days ahead. He may have some people look on your suffering and marvel at the grace of the Lord in your life that keeps you going. He may be preparing you to speak to others about how you have been sustained in a time of trouble.

My friend who looks at life from a wheelchair inspires me with how adversity can be your travelling companion through life and yet you may still be in love with the Lord and serve Him. Do not waste your suffering. Be a demonstration of God’s amazing grace and He will surely walk with you all the way home to glory.

All of us have been children at one time. However, as adults, we often need little children around us to remember what life was like then. As we watch how children behave we can see in them a faith that is complete and beautiful.

In western society we see that little children do not tend to worry about where their food or clothes will come from. Small children simply trust that their parents will see to their needs. They are far too busy playing to bother about food and shelter.

The faith of a child is full and robust. They are absolutely certain that mommy and daddy will take care of them and so there is no need for them to be concerned. Doubts about their parents’ ability to make provision has no place in their thinking. They unconsciously accept the fact they have needs they cannot meet and pass the work on to their parents.

Only when we grow up and start providing for ourselves do we find ourselves wondering about such things as where we will find a job, will we have enough money to pay the bills at the end of the month, etc. These concerns creep in and cause our faith in the Lord to waver and weaken.

Jesus tells us that we need to learn from children how to trust so completely that doubts and concerns vanish and don’t trouble us any more. However even though Jesus has told us to learn from children, we can still find ourselves upset over the troubles that come our way in life.

What is the solution to our difficulty in finding the simple faith of a child? What needs to happen in order for us to be converted and become like children? Sadly there is bad news before the good news.

What needs to happen is for something to come along to take away our faith in ourselves. We require situations too complex for us to solve to enter our lives. It may be something like health issues the doctor can’t remedy, death of a loved one, financial crisis, loss of a job, or collapse of a marriage.

Clearly for some of us at least, if we are to receive the good that God has for us something must happen to remove our self confidence. An issue must arise on our horizon to remove our ability to care for ourselves in some area of life.

This is what I mean by a bad thing being good for us. The Psalmist in Psalm 119:71 said that it was good for him to be afflicted in order for him to learn the ways of the Lord. When things were going well he relied on himself but when affliction came he realized his need for the Lord.

We also need to remember what James teaches: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4 NIV).

Can you look at the difficulty you have today and use it as a stepping stone to come close to your Father in heaven? Do you need the simple faith of a child who trusts their parents without any reserve? Use your problem for good. Make it the thing that pushes you into the loving arms of the Lord today.

Most, if not all of us have been busy doing something and someone started to talk to us. We have found their speech an interruption to our concentration on the task we were performing. Perhaps we simply ignore the person’s chatter. Then, we might find their speaking to be extremely irritating as we must turn to answer them and lose our focus on the work we were trying to do.

On another occasion we might be in great pain and we wish for a quiet, dark room to lie very still and not be disturbed. If someone interrupts our peaceful situation we easily become angry with them and ask them to go away. Trying to cope with pain that is severe is hard work and requires all of our concentration. Any interruption however small is very hard to accept.

Then, if we are interrupted at the time we are in dreadful pain and the person asks us to help them with something we may respond in a fury of words. We wonder why they cannot see how difficult our circumstances are, and they do not seem to understand that we need help. Why should we give someone else help when we are so desperate for assistance ourselves?

All of this is to be seen in our passage today. The situation Jesus is experiencing is the one He asked the Father to take away when He prayed in Gethsemane (Luke 22:42). In Mark 14:34 Jesus confided in the disciples that facing the cross was killing Him it was so dreadful. The poor confused disciples did not know how to answer Him or comfort Him.

So the horrors of the crucifixion were now on Jesus as He hung from the cross. People around the foot of the cross were mocking Him and taunting Him to come down so they could believe on Him. Jesus also had to look at the small group of women and a single man who dearly loved Him. He realised the sorrow His dying was causing them. That made His sorrow greater.

Then He knew that He would be immersed in the hell His people deserved for their sins and realising their sins would be put on Him caused enormous sorrow that we cannot understand. It is beyond comprehension what Jesus was dealing with at the moment the repentant thief on the cross beside Him started asking Him for help.

Jesus needed help desperately and received none. Could He reach out at such a critical moment and help someone else? Could He lay aside all of His enormous grief and do something for the man?

This is what is so incredible about our Saviour. At the precise moment when He was so occupied with our salvation, it seemed that He could put it all aside for a moment and give the desired help to the thief. Never think our God is too busy running the universe to stop and listen to our faint cry for help. Jesus gave the man what he asked for and did it that very day.

You should come to Jesus full of confidence that He shall pay close attention to your prayer and answer it. Come to Him and come today.

I have some family photos taken in the late 1800’s. I received them from my grandmother when she was alive and I was living with her. I know they are relatives but I have no idea who they were.

How I regret the fact that I didn’t ask my grandmother at the time so I could have written their names on the back of the photos. All I can do now is look at them and wonder who’s in the picture.

The verse today speaks of a remarkable incident in the lives of Peter, James and John. In the preceding chapter (Matthew 16) Peter had received a stinging rebuke from the Saviour because he tried to tell the Lord that He would not go to Jerusalem and be crucified. Jesus had spoken to the disciples about the cross and His crucifixion that was going to take place in a few months time. Peter had rejected the very idea.

The wonderful grace of our Lord is seen in the fact that a few days after He rebuked Peter He gave Peter the privilege of going with Him to the Mount of Transfiguration. The scene in Matthew 17 is of Jesus being transformed. Peter and the two other disciples witnessed the appearance of Jesus becoming luminous or shining like the sun. They were frightened by the change in Jesus’ appearance.

Then they saw Moses and Elijah and heard them talking to Jesus about His coming death in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31). Jesus was very concerned that Peter be fully restored to Him after the rebuke recorded in Matthew 16, and also that Peter would come to accept what Jesus had said about his death.

There is a lesson we can take from this action of Jesus helping Peter accept the truth of the cross. We learn here than sometimes when sorrow comes our way and we rebel against the Lord’s sovereign will, we may rest assured that the Lord will give us further opportunity to submit to what He is doing in our lives.

Peter tried to change Jesus’ mind about the cross and insisted that Jesus would not go through with the crucifixion. It was clearly an act of rebellion on Peter’s part. Although Jesus did rebuke Peter immediately, He did not reject Peter.

When the Lord rebukes one of his children it is always with the intention of producing positive change. However the Lord also encourages us for the same reason and Peter’s privilege of attending with the others on the Mount of Transfiguration was just such an encouragement.

The scene in Matthew 17 was obviously frightening for the disciples at first, but it became a restorative action to Peter. When the vision ended they all heard the voice from heaven telling them to listen to Jesus (Matthew 17:5). Thus Peter had it reaffirmed to him that what Jesus said was to be accepted and not rejected as he had done a few days earlier.

What every weary child of God needs is to have a clear vision of Jesus without anything or any one else in the picture. Pray for yourself today that you will have a clear vision of Jesus and that something of His glory will be seen by you. Pray that you will have a submissive spirit to what the Lord brings into your life whether you like it or not.

As long as you see the glory of our Lord, you will find it much easier to cope with the problems you face in life.