Watch and Pray

In the garden, hours before his arrest, Jesus finds his closest friends asleep when he needed them awake, and he tells them, "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." He is not scolding them so much as telling them the truth about themselves, and about us.

The spirit is willing. Most men in this fight genuinely want to be pure; the wanting is real. But the flesh is weak, and good intentions left to themselves fall asleep at the worst moment. Jesus joins watching and praying together as the guard against that weakness. Watching means staying honest about where you are vulnerable, the times of day and the states of mind that tend to precede a fall. Praying means bringing that weakness to God before it becomes a failure rather than after.

Your willing spirit was never going to be enough on its own, and Jesus, who understands weak flesh from the inside, does not shame you for it. Ask him to help you watch, and to keep you praying in the hour when you would rather sleep.