Passage
“And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them… And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” — Luke 2:51-52
Reflection
Between the episode of twelve-year-old Jesus talking with the teachers in the temple and the start of his public ministry, about eighteen years pass that the Bible says almost nothing about. No recorded miracle, no crowd, no speech. Just this short line: he grew, and he was submissive to his parents. The Son of God spent most of his life on earth in a small town, learning a trade, with hardly anyone around him knowing exactly who he was.
That can feel strange if you’re under pressure to have your purpose figured out already, to know exactly what you were born for before you’ve lived long enough to find out. You see others your age who already seem to have their path clear, and you wonder why you still haven’t found yours. But even Jesus, who knew who he was from the start, lived whole years of quiet growth before his moment came.
Those years weren’t wasted time. They were part of how God prepared him. Your season of quiet growth, the one that sometimes feels like it’s going nowhere, can also be exactly what you need before your moment arrives.
Prayer
Jesus, sometimes I feel like I should already have everything figured out, and I don’t. Help me trust that this time of growing, even if no one notices, also has a purpose. Give me patience to wait for my moment the way you waited for yours. Amen.