What a great prayer we see from Jesus this morning...a great example of how to pray, that can be used in conjunction with The Lord’s Prayer.  As I read this prayer, I notice a few things about it.

First, I don’t see Jesus praying for safety from what He know is coming.  Even though Jesus knows He is about to die a terrible death, He doesn’t pray to be saved from that.  He has already made it known to God that He would prefer another way, and He lobs up a prayer like that in the middle of all of this, but He doesn’t use His words to pray for safety...He prays, instead, for unity.  He prays that these disciples would get a glimpse of how great God really is, just as He has seen.

He prays for their strength, because He knows that they are starting to get it, to understand, and that they are are starting to be ‘hated’ by the world on account of the truth they are professing.  He has been hard on them to develop them and to prepare them, but you can see in this prayer that He doesn’t care for them and love them.

Another thing I notice when reading this, that isn’t explicit in what Jesus is saying, but that seems to be true based on what He says, is that Jesus is content with the work He has done.  Jesus has been a ‘good and faithful servant’...Jesus knows that.  The power of that confidence is, no doubt, wind in His sails as He faces what’s the come.  It encourages me that if I can get my faith right, if I can trust God fully, follow Him unconditionally, and live in a way that demonstrates that faith and trust, I can be content.  I can be confident.  I am rest in the fact that God will smile upon me.  That’s a huge encouragement for me.

Today I am thinking about the sense of closeness that Jesus must have, based on this prayer, with God.  This is a closeness that I want.  This is a unity that I want.  And, it is a great reminder that Jesus really did love the disciples and us, and that He prays on our behalf as we do God’s will here on earth...that we aren’t alone in that work.