Being Where We Should be, When We Should be There, Doing What We Should be Doing!
Luke 2:49 And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”
The Lord and the Heavens
The Lord was always where He should be, when He should be there. He was obedient to his earthly parents even when they thought He was causing them needless anxiety. He seemed to think that they should have known that He would be in the temple when they realized He was not in the company traveling home from the Passover. That was His Father’s house and He was doing His Father’s business. Some translations say “Do you not know that I must be in My Father’s House?”
I have often wondered if the Lord was disciplined as a child growing up. If He was disciplined, His parents were mistaken in doing it, because He would not have been mistaken in what He was doing. Yes, sometimes parents, even the best of parents, can make mistakes in the disciplining of their children. I frankly would have had more than a conversation with Him if I had found Him in the temple after a three day search. Today, we wouldn’t think of giving a twelve year old boy the freedom to travel in a company like that without someone having eyes on Him at all times. But times were different then, and the pilgrims that were traveling together likely knew each other and likely looked after each others children.
So really the Lord was much like the stars. He could be counted on to be where He should be when He should be there. I believe that one of the ways that the heavens declare the glory of God in Psalm 19:1, is that the stars are always where they should be when they should be there. Their position in the sky can be predicted with mathematical accuracy.
Us
The difference between the stars in the sky and mankind is that people go their own way and they are not usually where they should be when they should be there doing what the Lord wants them to do. Adam and Eve hid themselves from God after sinning in the Garden of Eden. David probably should have been leading his armies in battle when he stayed home and sinned with Bathsheba. Balaam should have stayed home instead of going with Balak and accepting money and prestige to curse a people that the Lord had blessed. Isaiah says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). We are a people that like to go our own way while the Lord always did those things that pleased the Father.
Me
I often wonder if I am where I should be when I should be there doing what the Lord wants me to do. I remember a preacher that I greatly respected telling me that he often wondered if he was preaching in the place where the Lord wanted him to be preaching when the Lord wanted him preaching there. He had no question that the Lord had called him to preach the Gospel. However, there are a lot of places to preach; and he wondered sometimes if he was in the right place. But he told me there was one time every week when he had no question but that he was in the right place doing the right thing. That was when he came together with other Christians to remember the Lord by taking a loaf of bread and a cup of wine and sharing it at a symbolic meal with others. He told me that the Lord had said, “This do in remembrance of Me.” He said, “I know when I am remembering the Lord that I am in the will of the Lord.” This was so important to him that he told me he had only missed breaking bread with other Christians at this symbolic fellowship meal twice and he had been saved over 50 years at that time. He had missed once for snow and once for sickness if I remember correctly. He did not consider this a sacrament that he needed to do to have his sins forgiven. He did not consider it something he could do by himself. He always did it with other Christians as part of that group’s testimony to the Lord. He did it just because the Lord asked Him to do it. He seemed to think that if the Lord would die to save him, the least he could do would be to remember Him at the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day.
Something to Think About
The Lord was doing His Father’s business, not just at twelve years of age but throughout His life. He was certainly doing it when at the appropriate time He allowed Himself to be taken to the appropriate place outside the city gates of Jerusalem to become the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He was doing His Father’s bidding. The stars also do God’s bidding. But do I? Am I where He wants me to be when He wants me to be there doing what He wants me to do?
Bruce Collins
Meditation for the week of March 23, 2014