Taking Hold of Our Cup
By Aaron D’Anthony Brown
“Going a little farther, he fell face down and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)
The Cup of Sorrow
Jesus' life demonstrated both suffering and submission. He was born to save mankind from the consequence of sin, bearing the weight of pain and hardship meant for us so salvation would be possible. Despite the toils on this earth, He endured, and He maintained His faith in God. Jesus did not want to experience all that unfolded, but He accepted the suffering nonetheless. He submitted not to His own will, but to the Father’s. He drank from the Cup of Sorrow.
Jesus’ life is something none of us will ever fully comprehend, but we can learn a thing or two about suffering and submission. His life mirrors our own. Suffering is inevitable for each of us, no matter where we are born, our social status, age, or sex. Hardships will arise both from within and externally, and there is nothing we can do to avoid them.
Where we do have a choice, as Jesus reveals, in submission, as we go through life, we can choose to live for ourselves or for God. The temptation, especially when suffering gives us a bleak view of life, is to submit to our own will. If God doesn’t save, help, guide, or do whatever for us, then we want to make it happen for ourselves. The Cup of Sorrow is often undesirable and thus, so is submission.
Life is hard. Any adult who has led a life of service, responsibility, and faith knows how true that statement can be. The difficulty of life is something we try to shield from our children, but like us, they eventually come to discover sorrow all the same. We try to shield ourselves from this difficult truth as well, coping with food, video games, alcohol, sex, and more. However distracted we decide to be, the reality remains the same. Life is hard. But what happens when we submit to God, and ultimately to whatever suffering comes our way? We can say with confidence, something good because Jesus’ life reveals this as well.
Intersecting Faith and Life:
Before we experience the outcome of submission, we first have to overcome the hurdle of taking hold of our cup. What is the solution when we are given the cup, but don’t want to drink it? The answer is hard but simple. The solution is to be like Christ and drink, accepting whatever life God has given or allowed us, and all the suffering it entails. We drink knowing God has not left us to go through life fending for ourselves. He’s promised His presence through the ages, meaning forever, our entire lifetimes and that of our children and their children.
We also drink knowing the sorrow we experience will not last forever. Jesus has shown us through His life, death, and resurrection, death has lost its sting. Suffering because our problems, whether financial, relational, or health will not last forever. When we submit to God, we find His presence in the midst of our hardships. We find healthy ways to cope. We find protection from any additional suffering. And in time, we find a way out - in this life or the next.
Every day, we have the option of submitting to our own will. Yet, there is no fair comparison between what we can offer ourselves and what God can. Only one of us is omnipresent, omnipotent, all-holy, all-loving, and faultless. God can do much more for us than we can do for ourselves. Therefore, whatever challenges we face in life, we ought to be like Jesus, declaring not our will, but the Father’s. We ought to remember no matter how much we toil during our lifetime, our Cup of Sorrow will eventually be replaced with a cup of joy, a kind of joy that never ever ends.
Further Reading (and Listening):
- “Great is Thy Faithfulness”
- “Yet Praise” by Marvin Winans & The Perfected Praise Choir
- Psalm 34:17-20
- Habakkuk 3:17-19
- Matthew 16:24
- Revelation 21:4
Photo Credit: © Unsplash/Gaelle Marcel
Aaron D'Anthony Brown is a freelance writer, hip-hop dance teacher, and visual artist, living in Virginia. He currently contributes to Salem Web Network’s Crosswalk platform and supports various clients through the freelancing website Upwork. He's an outside-the-box thinker with a penchant for challenging the status quo.
Get in touch with him at aarondanthony.com and check out his debut short story anthology Honey Dreams on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Check out fantastic resources on Faith, Family, and Fun at Crosswalk.com!
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