Once when I was a young man my father did something similar to what Jesus did on this day. My behaviour needed to be addressed. My father decided to pray for me. This was not a prayer to be prayed in the secret closet. He knelt beside me, forcing me to hear every word he had to say. He pled his case to heaven’s highest court with my ears hearing every request for change in my life. I would rather have been physically punished. Words can’t describe the emotions that flooded my mind.

Jesus gathered the disciples, for this, His last prayer prior to His crucifixion, and publicly spoke to His Father about what, I feel, He had privately spoken about to His disciples. He pled for the Father’s help in what He already asked the disciples to do. I wonder, how did the bickering, prestige-seeking disciples feel when He pled for change in their hearts?

Tenney, Tommy. God’s Dream Team. Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1999, p. 23-24.