Matthew 26:17–19 “On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Where do you want us to prepare the Passover meal for you?’ ‘As you go into the city,’ he told them, ‘you will see a certain man. Tell him, “The Teacher says: My time has come, and I will eat the Passover meal with my disciples at your house.”’ So the disciples did as Jesus told them and prepared the Passover meal there.”
There is something profoundly simple yet deeply revealing about this passage.
The disciples asked.
Before they prepared. Before they planned. Before they assumed. They asked Jesus, “Where do You want us to prepare?”
The devotional I joined highlighted this posture, and it gently unsettled me. Often, when entering a waiting season whether Lent, a fast, or a personal reset we decide what we will give up. We choose our sacrifice. We determine the discipline. And we call it devotion.
But we do not always ask. So today, even though I had already begun earlier in the week, I sensed a quiet invitation to reset. Not out of guilt. Not out of striving. But out of relationship.
“Lord, what do You want from me this season? What am I to put down?”
The beauty of this passage does not end with the disciples asking. It continues with their obedience:
“So the disciples did as Jesus told them.” They did not debate.
They did not negotiate. They did not improve upon His instruction.
They did exactly what He said. And because of that obedience, they entered sacred ground.
This was the final meal they would share with Jesus before the cross. They did not fully grasp the weight of the moment. They did not understand that they were preparing the setting for one of the most holy nights in history. Yet obedience ushered them into intimacy.
The same pattern appears at the wedding in Cana, when Mary said:
“Whatever He tells you to do, do it.” (John 2:5) There, obedience positioned them to witness their first miracle water turned into wine.
Here, obedience positioned them to sit at the last supper. There is sacredness on the other side of obedience. There are moments we cannot manufacture only enter through surrender.
They had never seen water become wine. They had never experienced a Passover like this one. Obedience often leads us into uncharted territory.
And so I pray not anxiously, but confidently because I believe God speaks. I believe He desires to guide. I believe He wants me to hear Him.
And as I waited, I sensed clarity. Not a dramatic fast. Not an extreme act.
“I do not want you to fast. I want you to put down unnatural sugar. Cakes. Sweets. Chocolates. Juices. If you have sugar, let it be from fruit.”
Simple. Specific. Personal. And just like that, my answer is: “Yes, Lord. I shall.”
Because obedience is not about spectacle. It is about alignment.
Wells of Wonder 