“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

“Hey, I’ve got to cancel”.  How many times have we each typed out these words, or a version of them, in an email or text?  I admit that I have done it plenty of times and way too many times over the past months of shifting travel, late renovations and changing obligations. I hate changing plans as I know I am wasting someone else’s time.  However, I read this past week that there is a subtle but real mental relaxation that people get when they cancel on something.  I have thought hard about it, and I think it’s probably true as Patti and I will move things around like theater tickets or events that we are planning to go, but if we don’t show, it doesn’t bother anyone else…and when we do, we feel like we have gained time and space.  But, it’s a bad habit to get into and I fear that if we do it at home, we probably are doing it at work. Consider the number of times that meetings get cancelled or rescheduled?  Lots!  Imagine a workplace where meetings couldn’t be rescheduled or cancelled.  My guess is that if we had that discipline, we’d schedule a lot less meetings.  Maybe it is worth a try.

Could “follow-through” be trait of Christ that we should be trying to emulate?  Let’s consider it for a moment. When we don’t follow-through on something we said we would do (something simple like a meeting or a phone call), then we are letting someone else down, breaking our word, and taking from another their most precious resource, which is time. And then we consider that Jesus came to the world with one ultimate appointment with destiny.  He prayed that if God saw it fit to remove His assignment, then let it be so.  But, when it was time and the cup didn’t pass, He followed through.  Look, our little daily commitments aren’t anything in comparison to the crucifixion of Jesus, but to others what we think is small, could be huge for them.  What we don’t know is how much time, energy and sacrifices they made to be ready for that meeting where we so easily said, “Hey, I’ve got to cancel.”

Reference: Luke 22:42 (New Living Translation)