The Prayer Coin

The Prayer Coin

Bible: Luke 22:39-44

Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be
done (V.42).

Reading

Every coin has two sides. Heads and tails. Coins showing the “head” of a country’s king or queen started in Roman times. The “tail” side seems to have come from our British ten pence piece, which originally showed the tail of a lion. Like a coin, Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, had two sides to it. In the darkest hours of His life—the night before He went to die on the cross— Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup, yet not my will but yours be done” (LUKE 22:42). When Jesus says, “take this cup,” that’s the raw honesty of prayer. He was saying, “This is what I want.” Then Jesus flips the coin, praying “not my will,”—the side of surrendering to what God’s doing. Surrender is saying to God, “But I will do what You want, Lord.” This two-sided prayer is included in Matthew 26, Mark 14 and Luke 22, and mentioned in John 18. Jesus prayed both sides of prayer: take this cup (what I want, God), yet not my will (what do you want, God?). It is a good pattern for us to follow in our prayers too. We can come with complete honesty about what we are struggling with and what we want. But we also come to trust God’s plans and surrender to Him with confidence in His love for us. These are the two sides of prayer; the ‘prayer coin’.

BOTH SIDES OF THE ‘PRAYER COIN’ ARE IMPORTANT
IN OUR CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD.

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