FINDING JESUS CHRIST

TODAY: You’re never too young or too old to develop the practice of spending time with God and reflecting on what God is doing in our lives. Take a look at Devo’Zine (www.upperroom.org/dev ozine), a devotional magazine designed just for youth and published by Upper Room Ministries. The magazine began in 1996 after a small group of teens in South Dakota challenged the church to come up with a magazine “just for them.”

Our Junior High Sunday School class recently spent a couple of weeks studying and discussing the story of when Jesus, as a 12-year-old, spent three days with teachers at the Temple. Like Jesus in this story, this is a time in our growth when we have many questions and a time when we are trying to find our role in life.

Is there such a thing as a Savior? Is the Lord real? Has God ever come down in human form? Why does God sometimes seem mean or spiteful? These may have been some of the questions that Jesus asked the teachers in the Temple when he was 12. As youth, we ask some of the same questions.

We seek answers for the many questions we have from our leaders at church, teachers at school and from our parents at home. We don’t always find the answers, but like Jesus, we keep searching. We are eager to learn. We sometimes try to answer them ourselves.

Did Jesus know when he was 12 who he was and the impact he would have on the world? We think that Jesus began to understand his role and purpose in the world during his three days at the Temple. We think that his understanding of becoming the Savior and Messiah and his role in bringing peace and harmony to the world did not happen immediately, but happened over time.

As teenagers, realizing such a role would overwhelm us. But Jesus appeared to be prepared for this role. Mary must have taught him as he was growing up to prepare him for this great task. Likewise, we know that we must spend time as we grow, preparing for whatever role we will have in life – that is the purpose of the many activities we engage in as children and youth.

We all have interests, but few of us actually know what we will end up doing with our lives or what our final calling will be. We all have God-given talents, but how should we use these talents? Even if Jesus knew he was to be the Son of God, did he understand what that meant? Being the Son of God didn’t come with a job description. Did he just let God show him the way?

Maybe that’s what all of us need to do in our lives – to have patience and to be open to different roles until we find what God has in mind for us. We should trust God to bring the answers into our path just as He did with Jesus; but we should also take the steps necessary to prepare ourselves for our role in life. Our journey may not lead us to the Temple for three days of questions and learning, but surely it requires us to continually ask questions and ponder our goals as we grow and learn.

— Junior High Sunday School Class

Courtesy of The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist