Prayer as dependence

It is in our place that Jesus prays, standing where we stand in our rebellion and alienation, existing where we exist in our refusal of divine grace and in our will to be independent, to live our own life in self-reliance. In that condition , Jesus prays against the whole trend of our existence and against all the self-willed movement of our life, for when Jesus prays it means that he casts himself in utter reliance upon God the Father, in utter dependence upon his will, and refuses to draw a single breath except in that reliance and dependence. In this way, Jesus prays as a creature fulfilling the covenant prayer of creation to the Father, but he prays it from within our alienation and in battle against our self-will. That is the prayer we are given to overhear: 'Not my will (that is, not the will of the alienated humanity which Jesus has made his own), but thy will be done.’ Thus he offers from out of our disobedience, a prayer of obedience. But such a prayer is his very mode of life as the Son of the Father on earth — it was prayer without ceasing, lived prayer, in which he ceaselessly sought from his Father in heaven his life and being as man on earth, in absolute reliance upon him at every point. And so by prayer in which word and life corresponded perfectly with one another, he offered again to the Father the steadfast answer of perfect filial obedience, and engaged the covenant will of God for his creatures.—T. F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, 117–18