Gethsemane is the place where, like Jesus, like Paul, like Joseph, you come face-to-face with your crucifixion and with the fact that God is in control. Note carefully: If there is to be resurrection — a new life to emerge from the pain, the betrayal, the hurtful words — there must be a crucifixion, and if there is to be a crucifixion — by the Father for the good of many — then there must be a Gethsemane moment when you say, “Not my will but yours.” There must be a moment when you say, even when the shadow of pain is falling over you, “They meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”

This Gethsemane — your Gethsemane, the moment when you respond to the pain you have received from others — is the turning point when you will either go forward as a walking wounded, destined to carry the burden for years or you will accept the trial as coming from God and open your life to Him. If you take up your cross and take off your crown, your response of faith will lead you to total trust in the Lord and His will for your life — total forgiveness of others and release of them to the Lord for His will in their lives and total freedom for you and His wonderful grace being unleashed as a powerful reality.

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This is what I told the friends who came to see me that day. It is what I want to say to each of you because we all will be hurt. We are all a bunch of recovering sinners living with each other. Like a family, we say things that hurt, we make mistakes that hurt others and ourselves. We live in a world that is fallen and where we are always being victimized by someone or something. But the Lord is calling us to identify our sufferings with Christ so that we are becoming like Him through the things that come against us.

I want to share something with you. I don’t say it to bring attention to myself but to show God’s faithfulness. There was a time in my ministry, when some things came together to bring pain. I cannot tell you details about these times, for they are too painful to me and too personal for others. But I did not see this truth. As I was hurt, I brooded over my pain. I believe that I was unforgiving in my heart toward these people and toward this one man. The pain festered for a long time. I would say, “This man has hurt me and ruined something good for me.” I hope by now you see, I was wrong. There is no resurrection for those who suffer without Gethsemane submission. There is no new life. There is only the grave. But if that is your story, it does not have to end that way. There is always a Gethsemane moment available for you. For me, I found my Gethsemane in a hotel room when no one else was watching. I said, “Lord, you did this. Not that man. Not those people. You did this. And shall I not drink this cup?” I had lost much. I cried and I cried. The tomb opened. I rose, and I lived again.

One day, many years later, I again saw the shadow of a cross coming over me. This time, I remembered. I am sorry but again I cannot tell you details. I will tell you this: I came home to my wife and said, “The Lord has called us to the field of testing. We have entered the time of the cross.” The crucifixion came. I felt moments when the Father had abandoned me. But by then I knew, He had abandoned His Son, my Lord, so that He would never abandon me. I knew from my lesson in the cross that to embrace the thing that was to come against me was to release snd forgive those who may have seemed to bring the hammer and the nails and the cross. No. It was God who would do this. For as one writer put it: