The Gethsemane Experience

I heard  an interview with Kathy Troccoli where she said God writes our story, we just gotta catch up to it. 

The catching up to it process is not easy.  In fact it can be a living hell for a while. Catching up will mean giving up things that are hindering our walk whether it slows us down or blocks the road altogether. When we get to the place of ultimate surrender to Christ, that’s when we are free.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey friends, thanks for tuning in to Unfiltered with Jesse B. Now I have a question for you. Do you ever wake up with a song in your head? How about a song from decades ago? That's exactly what happened to me this morning. And really, it's not unusual that I wake up with songs in my head or at least parts of songs playing in my head, especially if I've practiced them over and over again. I'm a musician, so it just sort of comes with the territory, but I'm also the type of person who can hear the hum of a dishwasher or washing machine and think, what key is that in? And then I look for rhythm, and then I wonder what kind of bass line I can write with that. I know I'm a nerd, but it just comes with the territory, I guess. But anyway, the song I woke up to was Parade from an album released in 2000 titled Love Has a Name by Kathy Tricoli. I've always liked Kathy Tricoli, but I have to confess I haven't listened to her music in many years, so why this particular song came to mind is really beyond me. But usually when that happens, God's trying to tell me something. So of course I looked up Kathy Tricoli to see what she was doing these days, and I'm pleased to learn that she's still writing and recording music. But it wasn't long before I came across an interview on YouTube from 2023 featured on a show called Today's Nashville. I never really knew too much about Kathy Tricoli, and so I was nevertheless intrigued by this interview. When we think of Christian music artists, we all have a tendency to kind of put them on pedestals, and we think that they're living their best life and they have it all together, which is rarely the case. I've personally found out over the years through direct experience and knowing people who have had experience working with many of these artists in different capacities in the industry. Now don't quote me in saying any of these people are bad people. They're just human, and they all have hang-ups and faults, just like the rest of us. The only difference is they are the ones in the spotlight under our microscope, not us. So Mr. Coley made several intriguing statements, but the first one that stood out to me the most is God writes our story in his book, and we have to catch up to it. Psalm one hundred thirty nine sixteen, and I'm reading this out of the NLT, says your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before they came to be. Now, catching up to God's story about us is not always easy. Catching up to the story that God has written about us is not always easy. Catching up requires getting rid of things that are not productive to our walk with Christ. It requires surrender, letting go, and letting God shape us into who He designed and planned for us to be through salvation made possible through Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit. This process is never pleasant, and in fact, it can really be a hot mess. And that brings me to the second thing that she mentioned, which was the willingness to have our own Garden of Gethsemane experience or process. Now, she was not comparing her story or her situation or herself to Jesus' experience in the Garden of Gethsemane. However, there are a lot of things that we can learn about ourselves from the Garden of Gethsemane, and we all know that there was a lot going on that night before Jesus was arrested. The first thing that Jesus demonstrated is surrender to God's will, which means giving up our own will and becoming more and more dependent upon Him, and that's not really that popular these days. Too many times we want the benefits without realizing that holiness is also a requirement and it's not an easy road. The second is trusting God through the suffering. Nobody is a fan of suffering, and while it is not God's will for any of his children to suffer, it is his will for us to be strengthened in faith and trust, and many times God will use suffering to accomplish that. Third, we also see the necessity of prayer. Jesus demonstrated in times of deep emotional pain and raw physical agony that honest prayer is a must in order to receive God's divine comfort. The fourth thing is we also see that Jesus was vulnerable and needed support, and it's okay to lean on other Christians, trusted friends that can help us, pray with us even when they fail to understand or in some cases fall asleep, so to speak. Five, this was also preparation for Jesus' greatest challenge and victory, which did not come immediately. It's a process that takes time and endurance. And finally, we have God's strength and weakness, that while God did not remove that cup of suffering, but by his strength Jesus endured, he overcame and had and got the victory, which in turn means that we also have the victory. So where do we go from here? It's all about honesty with God, which is the underlying theme of what I keep pushing on this podcast. The more honest we are, the more we surrender, the more we surrender, the more the Holy Spirit will flow freely in our lives without all that man-made pollution, be it from ourselves or from others. So with that, I'm gonna leave you with open and honest communication with your Lord. Have a great evening. Love you guys. Talk to you tomorrow.