Nevertheless
Luke 22:41-43 Amplified Bible (AMP)
41 And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw and knelt
down and prayed, 42 Saying, Father, if You are willing, remove
this cup from Me; yet not My will, but [always] Yours be done. 43 And
there appeared to Him an angel from heaven, strengthening Him in spirit.
When I was growing up, for many years in my adolescence
and preteen years we lived in a multigenerational household. I thank God for
being able to glean from my grandmother, mother and auntie; they all taught me
an awful lot. But there were many times
when I felt like I was the low man on the totem pole, because I was the
youngest for nine years, before my younger sister was born. In those years I learned respect at a whole
different level, because I had two and sometimes three matriarchs in the home
at one time. I often was conflicted, but
even when I didn’t understand; I learned to adopt an attitude of
nevertheless. You had to because even if
you did not know, you understood that the consequences of asking why, or just
being disobedient would land you in a world of hurt and trouble. So you took in a deep breath and thought something
like nevertheless, like oh well or just went on and did what you were told,
even when it seemed redundant, counterproductive what you had just done for
someone else, or just plain did not make sense at all. You adopted this attitude and this position
because you came to understand respect for authority and a healthy fear of mom,
grand mom and auntie. You rather get it
done, then not to and have to face not doing it their way, because sometimes no
matter which way you went it was painful, but the pain of not doing it was much
more severe than the boredom or redundancy of accomplishing it.
As I listened to a sermon last night, I heard the pastor
that was speaking say that we should always have a nevertheless. Having a nevertheless as it concerns God
simply means that we may not understand what is going on and why, and we may
know that what we are going through is uncomfortable, sometimes even painful,
but that we respect God for who He is and the authority figure that He should be
in our lives and we are determined to live in obedience and submission to Him. It also lets God know that we can be counted
on to rely on His wisdom and not our own that we are truly in a place of trust
and that we are not leaning on human logic, but on His will for our lives. When
we can say nevertheless, it allows God to know that we understand that our way
will bring consequences that often lead to our destruction or sets us up for
failure, and that we would rather have His way and His promises manifested then
our own.
Do you have a nevertheless? Can you honestly say that God is in
control? When it stops being about us
and begins to be more and more about God, and obedience to Him, we stop
rebelling and start saying nevertheless.
Remember that Jesus gave the greatest nevertheless of all times, when he
was preparing to die on Calvary’s cross, for you and I. He understood the
suffering, pain and the intensity of what the Father was asking Him to do, and
yet He still said nevertheless, not my will but yours be done!
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