Now Jacob loved Rachel; so, he said, ‘I will serve you seven years for Rachel your younger daughter.’ And Laban said, ‘It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to another man. Stay with me.’ So, Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed only a few days to him because of the love he had for her. Genesis 29:18-20
We have all lost track of time at one point another because we are so caught up in the activity in which we are engaged. I remember my dad telling of his first time playing an Atari game system (you young people Google what an Atari is). The game was Pitfall (Google that too), and it was the greatest thing in the history of electronic entertainment to that point. My dad only played the game system the one time, not because he did not enjoy it, but because before he knew what had happened, he had played for fourteen hours straight. He decided he could not afford to invest that kind of time in the game. I cannot fault him for this because I once played a video game for twenty-one hours straight with my old friend Jason. I am certain some of you can relate, even if it is some other activity which makes time seem irrelevant to you because you enjoy it so much.
The point with this is that the things we love draw us in until we lose track of and invest large amounts of time and effort in those things. Such passion is a good thing, if it is aimed properly and used wisely. In Luke 2:41-52, we see Jesus engulfed in the thing that mattered most to Him. After the feast of Passover was completed, His parents and the caravan with which they traveled left for home. After a day’s journey, they realized Jesus was not with them which led to a panicked search for the missing twelve-year old. How they failed to realize He was not with them is debatable, but what is not debatable is why He lingered instead of going with the caravan. When they found Him, Mary quizzed Him as to why He gave them such a scare (vs. 48), and His answer was quite pointed. “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” (vs. 49).
Jesus was neither defiant nor dismissive of His parents’ concerns as is evidenced by His going home with and being subject to them (vs. 51). No, what Jesus did and said revealed that of all His priorities, none was as great as doing the Father’s bidding. He often repeated the fact that He was here on this earth to complete a task, and no matter what else happened, He was going to do the work the Father gave Him to do (John 4:34; 5:17; 9:4; 17:4). What might we accomplish in His service if we all shared His zeal for the things of God. We would leave no stone unturned in the quest for good soil in which to plant the seed of the kingdom of God (cf. Luke 8:11).
It has been rightly stated any of us can say what matters most to us, but if someone sees our calendars and our checkbooks, they can tell us what really matters most to us. Time and money are the two great indicators of our priorities, as we all have a limited amount of each to spend. So, when the world tries to entice us to use our limited resources on purely worldly things, let us echo Jesus’ sentiments and say, “I must be about my Father’s business.” What do you find yourself so caught up in that you simply cannot walk away?