unaware

Imagine that you are in a crowded place. Suddenly you realize your child isn’t with you anymore. Moments after realizing that your child is missing, you immediately and hastily scan every direction, hoping to catch a quick glimpse. You begin to shake. You are sweating. Words have no place here because you have lost your ability to speak. You spin around and look again knowing that every second that goes by means they may be further and further away. Has your heart picked up the pace? Mine has.

A fist full of questions begins pounding on the big wooden doors of your mind:

Have they wandered off? Did somebody take them? Who could have done this?How could I let this happen? I can’t believe this is happening to me!

As worthy as these questions are, still the matter of first importance is to find your child. To figure out how it happened is secondary. You can get to that later.

“…the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day.” Luke 2

An entire day passed before Joseph and Mary realized Jesus was no longer with them, before the silence of absence spoke up and got their attention. Immediately, they began to check to see if he was among the friends and relatives, yet Jesus was not with them either.

And for what it’s worth, it seemed as far as they could tell that the plans were fairly simple, clear and straight-forward: they were to go to the Jerusalem for the feast and when it was over, they were to return home, together. Somewhere along the way, what Jesus had in mind and what his parents had in mind were not the same. Coming to an awareness of what had happened, Joseph and Mary left the company of travelers and hurried back to Jerusalem to search for Jesus.

Fortunately, it had only been one day before they discovered Jesus’ absence. And possibly it was not Jesus who was absent. Perhaps Jesus was where he was supposed to be all along. Maybe Mary and Joseph were the ones who did the leaving? Perhaps being focused on their own plans, they wandered off from where Jesus was, not bothering to see if Jesus had come along.

• Am I being led by Jesus? Or am I following myself–my own plan?
• What would it look like if I sought Jesus’ lead in every movement of my life?
• Am I too preoccupied with what I want to do and where I want to go that I become unaware that I am no longer following Jesus?