³⁸ He said to them, “I am deeply grieved^[a] to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with me.” (Matthew 26:38 CSB)

The rest of the story is that the disciples remained but fell asleep.

In Christ time of greatest need, prior to the crucification, he simply wanted his companions to stay with him and remain alert.

People will let us down, that is a simple fact. But it may be simple fatigue that has them sleeping on duty. We can forget in our times of great need that others have their lives they are still attending to and as such, may have a limited amount of energy to give to us.

When we are at the bottom and the path to the top seems insurmountable we have one source to call upon who will always remain with us. Even when our friends might not come through, God is there waiting for us to call out. And when we do He comes to our aid and will rally people around us.

But there is yet another element to this. We must also be open to accepting the help. We can be either so independent that we do not seek help or we can be so engulfed in pain that we may not have the energy to reach out. In the former we must move our self-centered independence aside and for the latter God hears the groaning of our hearts.

Lastly, we cannot decide to make ourselves a martyr. If we wallow in our self-pity we may keep others at bay and create a self deluding situation where we think we have no one who will remain with us.

This is why we must remain by God’s side so that we can take advantage of His healing and restful peace.