Over Confident
‘You don’t know what you are asking,’ Jesus said to them. ’“Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”’ ‘We can,’ they answered. Matthew 20:22
Today we saw that James and his brother gained great confidence by being around Jesus. Their well-intentioned but misguided offer to call fire out of nowhere shows that – they really thought they could do it. But sometimes confidence causes us to stray into dangerous territory, where we quickly assume we have the skills and tenacity for a task, only to discover we don’t. Jesus responds to the requests for thrones by promising a ‘cup’ of suffering ahead for these brothers. They ask for glory – He asks them if they can cope with pain. Without hesitation, they insist they will be faithful. But, in a sense, they were wrong, and overestimated their own strength. They would drink the cup – eventually. James would be martyred, and John would be exiled to Patmos after suffering terrible torture, according to church tradition. But before any of that happened, they would join the other fleeing disciples, deserting Jesus when He was arrested in Gethsemane.
Some Christians don’t like to say ‘I can’t’ – as if it is an admission of failure. But a healthy sense of our strengths and weaknesses is vital. Some say, ‘I can do all things through Christ’, taking out of context Paul’s words in Philippians 4:13. The idea in his words is not that we can do anything we choose, but rather anything that God calls us to do – because it is done through Christ who strengthens, and He surely only strengthens us for that which is His calling. Let’s know what we can do – and recognise our limits too.