Have you ever wondered what it must have been like to parent God? Mary and Joseph didn’t, they actually did. As for the rest of us, we can only imagine what that must have been like.
Just image it – cleaning His bottom, feeding Him, dressing Him, helping Him take His first steps, uttering His first words and all the while remembering, this is God.
A clear reminder of this would have been when they lost Him while travelling back home from Passover in Jerusalem. Yes, they lost God. They had assumed He was travelling along with them, happily hanging out with one of their relatives or acquaintances in their large travel group. But He wasn’t. It took them not one, not two but four days to find Him. One can only imagine the mounting anxiety and fears they, as any parent, would have had losing their child for that long.
It seems like an understatement what His mother had to say to Him when they finally found Him in the temple…
“After three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. All who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and His answers. When they saw Him, they were amazed. And His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You dealt with us like this? Look, Your father and I have anxiously searched for You.””
Luke 2:46-48
….and His classic reply to them was…
“He said to them, “How is it that you searched for Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” But they did not understand the word which He spoke to them.
Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them. But His mother kept all these words in her heart.”
Luke 2:49-51
I suspect that while His reply was totally logical, it was perhaps an unexpected one given their question and the worries from which it came.
It does bring to mind the clear point that children model us. They go around to “be about My Father’s business”.
Parents, never forget that your business isn’t just what you do out there to make a living, it’s what you do in here. In your mind and in your heart, the life that you model at home which is what your children will feel they “must be about”.
What an awesome privilege.
Never forget that it’s God given but above all, God empowered. May we always remember that and draw on Him. Because after all, all children must be about their Father’s business, and it starts with the parents being about their Heavenly Father’s business.
