Yet not
“yet not My will, but Thine be done.” Luke 22:42
Yet not – Jesus’ words in the Garden are perhaps the most important words ever spoken. Without these words, God’s plan of redemption fails. Without these words, the world is doomed. These words become the rallying call for every follower of Jesus. Each one is important.
“Yet not” (in Greek, plen me) separates the human from the divine. On one side of the phrase is the human view of the world. That is the side that says there is an easier way, a way that does not involve suffering. On that side of the phrase, Jesus says, “If there is any way that I don’t have to go through with this.” That is our perspective. If You, oh God, could just give me another path. If You would only let this slide just one time. If just this once I didn’t have to follow You. How many times have we tried to bargain with God? We don’t want to step where He is calling. The road is rough. We don’t see our way clearly. We think it is too much to ask. So we come to God with the “if only” posture. “If only You could make it easier.” When we reach this side of the phrase, we need to take the hand of Jesus and remember that plen me bridges the gap between the human and the divine.
Plen me is also translated “nevertheless” and “but rather”. There is a pause between the human way and God’s way. Plen is a contraction of pleno. The root word means “more”. That helps paint the picture. There is my human way, then there is a pause, and then I see that God calls me to more than a human solution. God’s way does not mean giving up something. It means getting more of the picture. Plen me shows me that God’s way is more than I thought. It is the right way because it fulfills His purposes.
So many times we stumble on this side of the phrase. We come up against the call of God to step over our human concerns and follow Him into divine purposes. We see only the difficulties and the trials and the terror. That’s when we need to hear Jesus in the Garden. “Yet not” are words that proclaim absolute obedience and confident assurance that God’s way is the way of more.
No one can do the will of God until he confronts this phrase. Anyone can do the will of God when he makes this phrase the steppingstone of obedience. Do you want more of God? Then you must live the life of “yet not”.
