Digging Deeper

I am the father of a 16 year old daughter, Marissa. I have had many moments of inadequacy as a parent and I have often asked for God’s direction and forgiveness in my parenting skills. But can you imagine how Mary and Joseph must have felt. We don’t know a lot about Mary and Joseph as parents. We do know from Luke 2 that they were a whole day from Jerusalem before they realized He was not with them. How would that feel? <Joseph>”Mary, where’s Jesus?”<Mary> “I thought He was with the Joneses, haven’t you seen Him?” Now of course Jesus had a mission and purpose and was protected by God but I think I still would have freaked “Great! God entrusts us with His only begotten Son and we go off and forget Him!” How often did Mary and Joseph ask themselves “Are we prepared for this? Who are we to raise this child? What can we offer Him?”

What about Jesus as a child? Was He a good kid? Did He need disciplined?

How in the world do you raise the Son of God? I imagine it took a lot of faith, discipline, obedience and of course prayer. Well, huh? That sounds a lot like how Jenni and I try to raise Marissa. You see, while our children are ours, ultimately they/we are all God’s children. And as parents we are all entrusted with God’s children. But we can only raise them to the best of our abilities and we have to trust in God for the rest.

Read Luke 2

by Rick Phillips