When Jesus’ parents had fulfilled all the requirements of the law of the Lord, they returned home to Nazareth in Galilee. There the child grew up healthy and strong. He was filled with wisdom, and God’s favor was on him…..(Twelve years later)…….Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. When Jesus was twelve years old, they attended the festival as usual. After the celebration was over, they started home to Nazareth, but Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents didn’t miss him at first, because they assumed he was among the other travelers. Three days later they finally discovered him in the Temple, sitting among the religious teachers, listening to them and asking questions. Then he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. And his mother stored all these things in her heart. Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people…..(Eighteen’ish years later)…It was now the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, the Roman emperor. (Excerpts Luke 2-3)
Every year, one of my favorite Christmas presents is my new journal, and they have come in all shapes and sizes. I love to journal. I don’t necessarily write what I did that day – it’s not like a diary. If it were, most days would be pretty boring.
“Quiet time. Dragged my kids out of bed for school. Did dishes. Worked. Housework. Picked up kids. Made dinner. Cleaned up dinner. More housework. More work. Fell into bed exhausted.”
But I do write the BIG moments. I capture the memorable moments…what God spoke to me a particular day or if something AMAZING happened.
Luke is journaling here….he’s writing the highlights of the life of Jesus. The things that stuck out to him. The things he thought were noteworthy. He took two whole chapters to write about the events leading up to and including Jesus’ birth and dedication in the temple. Then, in one verse, he covers twelve years of His life.
…they returned home to Nazareth in Galilee. There the child grew up healthy and strong. He was filled with wisdom, and God’s favor was on him.
Then we get a story from when He was twelve years old and got left behind in Jerusalem. I mean, I can totally relate. I have left my kids at church before. And who hasn’t forgotten to pick their kids up from track? (I had to set an alarm on my phone because it happened WAY too many times to count!)
But we go from Jesus in the temple when he was twelve to – BAM – He is 30 and ready to start his ministry! Wow, Luke! Missed a few years didn’t you? Why did you do that?
Well, it was likely because those years weren’t noteworthy. They would probably read like my diary would, day in and day out looking almost the same – maybe even a bit boring. “Quiet time. Chores. School. Chores. Eat. Chores. Bed.”
Those were quiet years. Mundane years. Nothing-to-write-home-about years. Jesus had them. John the Baptist had them. They just went about their everyday, ho-hum life.
And we all have ho-hum days, don’t we? But for some reason, we feel that if we aren’t having highlight moments every day, we are doing something wrong. If we aren’t having amazing things happen every day, we have somehow missed out on life and life is passing us by. Depression sets in. Discouragement sets in, and we just say, “Oh well,” and let go of the dream and the promise. “Guess it’s just not going to happen.”
That’s exactly how I felt when my kids were small. Can anyone relate? “Get up. Change diapers. Feed kids. Change diapers. Clean house. Feed kids. Clean house. Change diapers. Feed kids. Clean kids. Clean house again. Fall into bed exhausted.” And we can get discouraged and lose our joy and disdain what we are doing because nothing noteworthy is happening.
Focus is everything in learning to manage the mundane days and seasons of life. It’s okay to have times when nothing noteworthy is really going on. Those are the days you really have time to dig in…dig into the Word…dig into prayer….dig into relationship and take that time to get to know Him a little bit better. It’s in the mundane times that things are usually quiet enough to hear His whisper.
Don’t disdain the mundane. Recognize it not as boring, unfruitful seasons but instead as times of refreshing spirit, soul, and body. Recognize it as times strategically placed in your life by God for you to look beyond what you see and dream about what you don’t yet see…as times of laying a deeper foundation for what is coming next.
Changing your focus will change the way you look at mundane seasons and will help keep you out of discouragement and keep you in faith and trust.
So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. (2 Corinthians 4:18)