Pray Like Jesus In Tough TimesSampl

Jesus' final prayer on the cross is recorded in Luke: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (23:46). John wrote that Jesus said, “It is finished,” just before he “bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (19:30). That, too, could have actually been a prayer. Both show us Jesus' submission to God’s plan as a final offering to atone for the sins of man. Jesus' prayer also echoes and fulfills Jesus' desire to be with his Father in heaven. And that longing was one that existed from boyhood. When Jesus was twelve, his parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. One day into their journey home to Nazareth, Mary and Joseph realized that Jesus was not with the group with which they were traveling, so they headed back to Jerusalem where they found him two days later in the temple courts asking the teachers questions. When his mother asked Jesus why he had treated them like that, he said, “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). Yes, that was Jesus, the Son of God. He had to be in his Father’s house as a young boy. And he had to be in his Father’s house as his last earthly prayer on the cross. May we, too, have the desire to be in our Father’s house and seek his presence in prayer as much as is humanly possible.