“Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.”

Want to know a place where we treat animals and nature better than people (or maybe there are lots of examples of that actually)? I’ve noticed that where we see “Do Not Disturb” signs posted for sensitive environmental reasons for the growing of plant life or the mating and birth of endangered species’, we tend to take those signs seriously and respect the request.  But, put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on a door, or outside of a cubicle and we will think someone forgot to take down the sign and they won’t mind just a little bit of disturbance.  It’s pretty arrogant of us when we do this and should tell us about who we are taking care of first (ourselves), but we do it.  An informal poll showed that 52% of people keep their phones on “Do Not Disturb” at all times.  I am one of those.  It drives Patti nuts when she attempts to get a hold of me, but in the bigger picture, the amount of focus and relief of stress from always being interrupted is worth the grief I take from her and others ( “He never answers his phone”, they say about me. True).  Call it self-preservation from someone who only has one phone number and could spend 24X7 answering phone calls and texts.  I’m not advocating my way of using “Do Not Disturb (although the data says I am not the outlier that I thought I was), but I can attest that finding “Do Not Disturb” time can be helpful.

Jesus was pretty accessible to His Disciples.  He was with them all the time and even when He was asleep they didn’t resist waking Him up.  However, I do think that He had His limits too when it came to needing His “Do Not Disturb” time.  We are given one of those examples in the Garden of Gethsemane.  In this instance He told them to sit and stay where they were while He went to pray away from them.  He was getting His “Do Not Disturb” time during a very stressful time.  If Jesus needed it, then we need it.  The question is, are we getting enough of it today?

Reference: Matthew 26:36 (New Living Translation)