Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

by Jennie Allen

Not only did Jesus pray for himself but he prayed for his disciples and for us. He said, “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world . . . As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” (John 17:16, 18). The night Jesus prayed this prayer there was no oxygen left in the Upper Room. His death had just been set in motion, he had just told his men he was leaving them, and he had just explained to them that the world would hate them just as the world hated him. Then he prayed this prayer: “Father, glorify yourself through me. Glorify yourself through them” (John 17, paraphrased). Everyone sitting with him that night felt the weight of a call so large, so costly, so significant: the call to show the glory of God to the earth. A few men meant to display God. Eventually, most of those men were killed for this call. Jesus went on to pray, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word” (John 17:20). He also said, “I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world” (John 17:11).