Luke 6:12 “Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.”
An ability of Christ that we often forget about is His knowledge of the future. This knowledge really creates some interesting points of conversation if you think about it. If He knew what would happen next, why pray? Indeed, why shouldn’t His knowledge of the future change what He did on a daily basis in a very profound way? Well it did. He didn’t pray in spite of knowing the future and realizing that it would all turn out all right in the end. He prayed all night because of His knowledge that everything would turn out fine.
We get so stuck in the present, looking to an uncertain future, that this is the only way we can conceive of reality. But, that is a limited view. Jesus never had to doubt what would come next. And, in our conception, this would cause Him to just kind of drift along, not really engaging in life since life would happen in any case. But this conception is based on a misunderstanding. And the life of Christ allows us to pull out of this misunderstanding. By the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we may begin to understand a life where choices and actions, and even alterations, still fit into the pre-known scheme of all of history.
This is a difficult concept at first, but think about it this way. If you have never walked a tightrope 1200 ft in the air, you don’t really know what it is like. You can imagine pretty good, but you are not used to it, nor could you likely accomplish it. But, if you watch someone doing it, that act brings you one step closer to knowing the feeling of the doing of it. The same is true with Christ. It is difficult for us to imagine living ‘normal’ life while already knowing the future. But, Jesus has done it, and He brings us closer to the doing of it.
Though foreign to us now, one day we will understand a life where we more or less know everything that will ever happen, nothing really ever changes, and human imperfection is not even possible. You might cringe. You might think that sounds too outlandish. But if you claim to believe Christ, then you must admit to each point completely. That is our future.
The question I want to ask here is, if Jesus knew the future and yet spent all night in prayer, what does that teach us? Most of the time we don’t know with much certainty what will happen in the next five minutes.
Heavenly Father, thank You for giving us Christ! He helps us see so much! We are so limited and yet we can stretch in Him, exercising muscles we never had before. You have pulled us out of our broken reality with your mercy and grace. How can we ever thank You enough? How can we even grow to the place that we need to be? And yet by Your grace we may. Thank You! In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.