Garden Friend.

This is my friend Dave Busby. He has been one of the mentors that God kindly placed in my life. His teaching and life have impacted my teaching and life significantly. What I will write here are things that he taught me through the work of God's Spirit. I only met him once, but he continues to teach me many times. He went to be with Jesus in 1997. He is a garden friend as a teacher in my life.

Pain.

I wonder what stirs in you as you see that word, hear that word, feel that word? Physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, heart pain. These are deep things. They wring us out and call us deeper. What do we do with our pain? What did Jesus do with His pain? Tenderly, we get to see and find out in the kind gift of the Word of the Lord.

Bible book of Mark, chapter 14, verses 32 through 42 gives us as up close a picture as we get to have of Jesus facing pain and what it looked like. This is important for my soul. Jesus is deliberately on the road to the cross. He has outed Judas as His betrayer. He has predicted Peter's denial of even knowing Him. And now knowing that this sovereign, ruthless gauntlet is about to proceed in force, He wants to pray. He wants to pray. Fully God and fully man and He wants to.....needs to pray. He's not making lists, scheming or trying to casually evade the road that is present. He is dependently praying. And then He shows us how He processes His pain. And so that we don't think that it wasn't real for fully God Jesus to experience fully man pain, we receive words like, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." "His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." "Anguish." Real.

What do we learn from our older brother?

1. Jesus acknowledged and expressed His pain out loud in the presence of a few special friends.

He chose 3 "garden" friends to go with Him into His garden of pain (Gethsemane). He wanted them there with Him. He doesn't "need" them there. He's fully God. He wants them there. And He was honest about His heart of pain while He was with them in the garden of pain.

2. Jesus asked a few special friends (garden friends) to go with Him into His garden of pain as His secondary support system.

Who would you want to be with you in your garden of pain? Are you a garden friend to someone? Do you want to be a garden friend to someone? Even on the best days, garden friends fail. They are sleepy and fragile and just as needy as can be. That's why human garden friends are secondary support. Jesus is our primary garden friend. THE garden friend like no other. WITH YOU in your pain.

3. Jesus poured out His heart to His primary support, His Father, His Daddy. His Abba.

I love that we get that word in verse 36. "Abba." So intimate. Pain aching intimate. I so love this truth. This has been the plan all along. Jesus, fully God, has known it all along. And now it's here. AND IT'S HARD. "Is there another way Abba?" Tender, not demanding. Submission to Daddy. Not manipulating. "With You Abba, everything is possible." Right in the gut of the pain Son speaks about the glorious character of His Abba. I know you can take this cup from me. And I want to love and honor you. So I will do it. Bible book of Luke gives us more words. "And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." He KEEPS TALKING TO ABBA IN THE CORE OF THE PAIN. Keep talking to Me Damon. Talk to Me.

4. Human garden friends get sleepy in the garden of pain because they are not Jesus.

"Watch and pray so you won't fall into temptation." He's not shaming them. He's teaching them. He identifies and is about to identify with them beyond imagination. "The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." We get a bit more in the bible book of Luke about the garden friends as well. It's not that they went on an all night drunken bender the night before and so they are so sleepy in Jesus' garden of pain. It tells us in Luke 22:45, "They were exhausted from sorrow." Yes they are. All of this belongs.

Pause. Selah.

5. Jesus receives from His Abba what He needs to go through the pain.

"Enough. The hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise. Let's go. Here comes my betrayer." Not, "let's go" so I can escape. "Let's go." I have received from Abba what I need to face this pain. I am going to the cross.

So much here.

I am overwhelmed with sorrow.

I am expressing it out loud with my friends.

I am expressing it humbly and intimately with my Daddy.

I'm aware that He's my only hope.

He is meeting Me in my garden of pain.

And us.

We can receive from our Abba what we need.

Sin is painful.

Separation from God is really painful, we just don't always know it.

We receive forgiveness.

We receive courage.

We receive Jesus.

There's more.