Faith And Worry

Faith and Worry

Read: Luke 2:41-50

“Why were you searching for me?”

Luke 2:49

“Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and His will for us.”

—Billy Graham

IN WORD The young Jesus was missing for three days, a painfully long time for a mother and father who don’t know where their child is. It wasn’t the only time Jesus would be missing for three days, and each event prompted a similar response from His loved ones, as well as a similar response from Him. Both times—when He calmly sat in the Temple discussing theology and when He lay in the grave—His loved ones were thrown into a panic. No one ever seemed to look in the right places for Him.

There is no faith evident in either of these two incidents—Mary and Joseph turned Jerusalem upside down looking for the young Jesus; and His relatives, disciples, and friends scattered and hid while He lay in the grave, then wondered who had taken His body. In both cases, they fundamentally misunderstood who Jesus was.

Both of these events are catastrophic. But not to Jesus. Both times, Jesus calmly gives reassurance. Faith is the appropriate response, He seems to imply in His gentle rebukes. God remains on His throne, Jesus is Lord, and the situation at hand—whatever it is—isn’t nearly as critical as it seems.

IN DEED Isn’t that an accurate portrayal of our reaction and His response in a crisis? We often run around in a panic because a given situation isn’t quite what we planned, or perhaps it even appears disastrous. All the while, Jesus calmly awaits our discovery that God is in fact sovereign, and Jesus Himself does in fact remain Lord. Neither death nor frantic parents are beyond His reach.

Are you in a crisis? Hear Him asking, “Why were you searching for me?” and know that your situation is much larger to you than it is to Him.