Valerie Rae Hanneman
Luke 2:43 (NLT) “After the celebration was over, they started home to Nazareth, but Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents didn't miss him at first”
My step-father was raised in Arkansas so about every other year we would load up our car and go to visit his family. One year we met up with one of his siblings at another sibling’s home in Little Rock. My step-father and his sibling decided to travel on together to the family home at Junction City. The next morning we got up early, said our goodbyes to the Little Rock family, piled into our two cars and took off for Junction City. My brother, Scott, and I were sitting in the third seat of our station wagon. It faced backwards so we were looking at the traffic that was behind us. About 45 minutes into the trip I noticed this car behind us because the driver looked a lot like my Little Rock aunt. When she caught up to us and started frantically waving and beeping her horn we realized that it WAS the Little Rock aunt. We pulled over to discover that during all the confusion of leaving, my brother Donald had been left behind. (My step-father thought he was riding in the first car.) If my aunt had not thrown my brother in her car and chased us down, we might have been in Junction City before we knew we had left him behind.
When Jesus was 12, He and His family went to Jerusalem for Passover. When they started back for Nazareth in a caravan, Jesus wasn’t with them. Mary was busy with Jesus’ younger half brothers & sisters, Jesus’ step-father, Joseph, was just as busy. They were not worried about Jesus, figuring that he was out and about somewhere. After all, if the Son of God can’t take care of Himself - who can? They probably weren’t concerned until Jesus did not show up for the evening meal. (No 12 year old boy - God or not - is late for dinner!) They had traveled a full day before they realized that Jesus was not with them.
But I cannot fault Mary and Joseph for leaving Jesus behind. I do it all the time. I do it a lot of different ways too. Sometimes my pride gets to growing and I decide that I am doing so much good work that I am number 1 when it comes to serving Jesus, so I know what I am doing and where I should be going and off I go. Then when things start falling apart, I look over to Jesus to find out why. Only He is not there. I have left Him behind. He is back there where I decided to take over. Jesus doesn’t sit in the co-pilot seat. He don’t fit in it. Jesus said, “Follow Me” He never said He was willing to follow us. And why should He? When we expect Him to follow us then we are a train wreck waiting to happen. Who can blame Him for not wanting to be involved with that?
Sometimes in my busyness I leave Him behind. I am so busy trying to be the perfect mother, the perfect daughter, the perfect employee, the perfect friend, the perfect servant of Christ, the perfect, the perfect, the perfect - that not only am I not perfect at anything - I don’t even make sense anymore. My life is chaos. Jesus does not exist in chaos. Look at the universe - it is not chaotic. The only chaos in it is in the minds and lives of humans. And when the whirlwind of my life finally spits me out, exhausted, broken, defeated, then I’m looking for my rest in Jesus - and He is not there. I left Him behind when the whirlwind chaos of my life was so bad He couldn’t tell if I were coming or going so He stepped out of it. Jesus said, “Be still and know that I am God.” When I have left Him behind in the busyness, He will wait until I am still and then He will straighten out the priorities of my life.
Sometimes, in my inattentiveness, I leave Him behind. It isn’t that I am so busy I don’t have time to be with Him. Instead, I just skip my time with Him and cover it with excuses. I need to get to work a little earlier, so I will skip my morning praise time. I need to help kids with a project, and so I push aside my evening prayer time. And the truth is that I get up a little earlier in the morning to check my e-mail before I go to work, and I always manage to stay up and play Zuma on the computer before I go to bed. So my excuses are just that - excuses to cover my inattentiveness to my relationship with the Living God. Then when I finally feel the distance between us and I look for Him, I see Him in our meeting place - waiting for me to return to Him. Jesus is a gentleman, He is not going to demand that I spend time with Him. He will wait until I miss the closeness we share to bring me back to Him.
Sometimes in my sneakiness I leave Him behind. When I am heading in a direction that I know I should not go and I sort of sneak away - leaving Him behind. When I gossip, and I hear His voice whisper, “don’t go there,” but I go there anyway. When the clerk gives me too much change, He urges me to be honest, but I keep my mouth shut. I could give hundreds of examples of my sneaking away from Him. I purposely leave Him behind but Jesus knows where I am. He just refuses to go with me. Jesus is clean. He is not going to join me in wallowing in the world’s muck. And when I am finally tired of the stench of the world that clings to me, I know not to look for Jesus to be right beside me, because I know that I purposely left Him behind. And shamefully, I go back to Him to be cleaned and restored. Thank You Jesus, for loving me so much that even when I purposely leave You, You take me back.
If my aunt had not chased us down we may not have known that Donald was left behind until we got to Junction City. If Mary & Joseph had not been concerned when Jesus failed to show for dinner, they might have made it to Nazareth before they realized He was left behind. I do not want to reach my final destination, to be standing before God’s throne, and find out that I left Jesus behind during my life and never realized it.
LORD Jesus, help me to quickly realize when I - through pride, busyness, carelessness or on purpose - leave You behind. Help me to turn back to you quickly. You are where I want to be.
Contact Valerie or sign up for the e-Ministry of Fresno First Baptist at valerie@fresnofirst.org
Posted by Valerie at October 29, 2005 03:11 PM