Encounter 2010
Encounter 2010 is coming: Saturday, October 9 – 7:00PM (Doors open at 6:30PM) @ the Lincoln Theatre in Marion, Virginia. Tickets are $5 and all proceeds support local missions (Project Crossroads) and foreign missions (Encounter Asia 2011). This is our new promo video! Please check it out and hope to see you there!
The Listener’s Edge
It all started with the great surprise. The night an angel appeared and said that you would carry the Son of the Most High, the One who would sit on the throne of David and rule a kingdom that would never end. You carried the baby for months, knowing that you were a virgin and that what had been conceived was a miracle by the Holy Spirit.
You gave birth in a stable, not a memory you would soon forget or ever desire to do all over again. You bear the responsibility of raising the One who created you, carrying the weight of trying to rear the Son of God, the One who would soon be Deliverer and Savior. And you discover on the way home from Jerusalem that “your” twelve-year old has gone missing.
You and your husband Joseph look everywhere. Question everyone, and wonder how on earth this has happened. Panic naturally sets in. The word spreads that Jesus is missing, and with your hearts pounding, you both rush back to Jerusalem and search frantically for three days throughout the bustling city…to no avail.
The tears have flowed. Your heart has filled with worry and the gnawing sense of guilt and failure. He is your son, even though He is not your Son. You love Him, but somehow this is even bigger than family. This is about an eternal family. A nation. Maybe more. And in a last ditch effort, you work your way into the temple courts, where you see “your” twelve-year-old boy, sitting there listening to the teachers and asking them questions.
It’s your turn to ask the questions: “Why have you done this to us, Jesus? Your father and I have been worried sick.”
“Mom, Dad, don’t worry. Didn’t you know I needed to be in my Father’s house?”
There the Son of God sat for days. A twelve-year-old boy, without Whom nothing would exist, and He is listening and asking questions to a group of teachers in the temple courts of Jerusalem. The Bible says that “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and with men.”
The story of the twelve-year-old Jesus is so compelling because I can identify with the worry and fear of Mary and Joseph. Somehow their story comforts me because of all the times I worry and panic. If you are a parent, you can probably relate. But I marvel at the Son of God sitting in the temple courts, listening and asking questions of the teachers there.
It’s called teachability, humility. The Son of God sat for days in his Father’s house, asking questions and listening to some old teachers whom He had formed in their mothers’ wombs. And if Jesus sits and listens and questions, we surely need to learn to listen and ask questions. He “grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and with men.” That is a prayer we must begin to pray for ourselves, others and especially our next generation. “Lord, by Your Spirit, cause _________ to grow in wisdom and stature and favor with God and with men.”
Perhaps that is one of the things Mary treasured in her heart. That her son, the Son who would save the world, was sitting in His Father’s house, asking questions and growing in wisdom by listening to men He gave wisdom to in the first place.
And so I am treasuring this scene in my heart and I’m asking myself questions. “In my life, right now. who am I listening to? Who am I making a conscious effort to ask questions? To learn from and grow?”
It’s one way we grow wise. Just ask the twelve-year-old Jesus.
Who are you listening to? To whom are you asking questions in order to grow in wisdom?
Is Your God Too Small?
This Week on Christian Leader Thursdays: C.S. Lewis
In the fantastic book Prince Caspian, from the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, Aslan tells Lucy, “Every year you grow, you will find Me bigger.” That may be my favorite line ever.
J.B. Phillips wrote a book called, Your God Is Too Small. I have to confess…I have not read it. But the title intrigues me. There is a tendency in me to settle for where I am in my relationship with God. The problem with settling is that it limits my picture of God to what I have known of Him so far. My ability to trust Him is based on that picture I have of Him, and all the while, God is saying, “You’ve just scratched the surface. Your God is too small. I AM so much bigger than you know!”
But Jesus is so patient with us. Though our tendency is to settle, God utilizes everything: His word, creation, blessings and perhaps most of all through our trials, to reveal His greatness in our lives. That’s why, even after Job had lived through a hell most of us can barely imagine, he responded to God, “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.” God is not satisfied with a picture of who He is in our hearts and minds that is not in line with the greatness of Who He is in reality. Our journey with Christ is a lifetime of discovering how BIG our God is, and a lifetime is not enough!
In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul wrote, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.” (Eph. 1:17) If God won’t settle for a small picture of Who He is, I sure can’t afford to settle. That may be the greatest adventure of life: Discovering daily how big our God is, through our trials, through our blessings and through hosts of other ways in which He reveals Himself.
As Paul sat in prison for preaching the truth of Jesus Christ, in chains he wrote these amazing words: “But Christ has shown me that what I once thought was valuable is worthless. Nothing is as wonderful as knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have given up everything else and count it all as garbage. All I want is Christ and to know that I belong to him. I could not make myself acceptable to God by obeying the Law of Moses. God accepted me simply because of my faith in Christ. All I want is to know Christ and the power that raised him to life.” (Philippians 3:7-10)
So keep growing. Lucy received some wise words: “Every year you grow, you will find Me bigger.”
How has God revealed Himself to be BIG in your life? How are you continuing to grow?
