After three days [Jesus' parents] found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers (Luke 2:46-47).

Of all the stories about Jesus' childhood, why would Luke choose to tell this story? Certainly, there were more interesting ones; stories that would give us a flavour of what his youth was like.

This story fills in the portrait of Jesus being painted. In Philippians 3, Paul details how he had been the perfect Jew. Luke is picturing Jesus with similar colours. He was born to and raised by pious Jewish parents. Only men were required to attend the religious festivals, so Mary's going shows deep family piety.

With this family setting, Luke invites us to consider the kinds of things our children learn from us. Do our words and actions match the faith teaching that our children and grandchildren receive? Is our piety mostly showy, as Jesus decries in Matthew 6, or does it reveal a deep faith in God's activity in this world? Can those around us notice our growing faith?

Jesus and his parents were well integrated into their community. This three-day trip was traveled in caravans for protection. That Jesus' parents did not worry about him for the first day, indicates that they expected others to be looking out for him. They were likely looking out for other children and youth. Jesus' family seems very ordinary.

In that day, it was not unusual for students to gather at the feet of the rabbis to discuss the Jewish faith and how to live faithfully with God. This was usually in a group question-and-answer format, as Luke indicates. Thus, Jesus' interaction with the rabbis was not unusual. That he didn't leave Jerusalem with his parents was unusual, but the focus not here.

Luke wants us to recognize that even at this young age, Jesus has amazing knowledge of the things of God. Those listening to him are astonished at his understanding, a reaction that will occur later to Jesus' miraculous work (8:56). Already early in life Jesus values the pursuit of comprehending God.

Jesus' interest in God was not a product of his unique divine sonship. Rather, it was the outcome of a life lived among those who walked with God. It pictures how all of us should prioritize our lives before God. The way he lived his life and pursued God faithfully reflects how we should seek God's face. When David was dying, he counselled his son with these words, "If you seek [the Lord], he will be found by you" (1 Chronicles 28:9). Luke is illustrating this truth.

Finally, this story illustrates something that one of Jesus' brothers would later write, "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere" (James 3:17). Jesus and the religious leaders would come to logger heads, but that was because they were threatened by him, refusing to believe that he was the Son of God. They pursued their own power rather than submitting to the Lord. Jesus began by submitting to them.

As you ponder the year that was, consider these things.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the God who gives hope fill you with great joy. May you have perfect peace as you trust in him. May the power of the Holy Spirit fill you with hope.

"Why do you boast of evil, you mighty hero? Why do you boast all day long, you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God? Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin: He will snatch you up and pluck you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living. But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God's unfailing love for ever and ever (Psalm 52:1,5,8).

David is hiding from King Saul and his murderous paranoia. When the priest Ahimelech gives David refuge, Doeg tattles on him. Having volunteered to kill the priest, Doeg kills Ahimelech and 83 of his clan. When he's done, he feels macho: a warrior to be reckoned with. This prompts David's sarcastic line, "Why do you boast of evil, you mighty hero?" (Psalm 52:1).

The Bible traces this "Big Lie" from the Garden of Eden in Genesis to the Lake of Fire in Revelation.

The "Big Lie" can be understood in various ways. It is the lie that says, "I have created myself; I am like a god; I command my own destiny; I am self sufficient and autonomous; the meaning of life is pleasure, self fulfilment, or independence."

When we live out of the "Big Lie", we deceive and manipulate people for our own ends. We make ourselves the centre of our universe. One question becomes most important: "What's in it for me?" Cut off from God's goodness, we become evil in our intentions, feeding our own selfishness.

God comes to shatter the "Big Lie" that started in the Garden. When Adam and Eve fell, they did not become like gods, as Satan promised. Instead, they simply found themselves naked and jumped into the bushes. There, God confronted them, showed them their sin, executed His judgment by throwing them out of the Garden to wander across the earth.

We are still tempted, however, to live without God, but He doesn't leave us alone. He comes with a gracious warning to show us our choices: to live with Him in the truth or live without Him in the "Big Lie." This Psalm addresses these choices.

The psalm exposes the stupidity of the "mighty person" who trusts in herself or in his money, choosing evil rather than God's goodness. Such a person loves lying and has a "deceitful tongue" to cover up their evil.

God will bring such people to ruin. The righteous will be in awe and laugh at such stupidity. The psalmist will be among them in God's house, worshipping and waiting on the Lord. Rather than finding life's meaning in himself, he finds it in the mercy of God and the goodness of His name.

But doesn't a little of Doeg live in all of us? Jesus has the cure for doegishness: "Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:4-5).

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the God who gives hope fill you with great joy. May you have perfect peace as you trust in him. May the power of the Holy Spirit fill you with hope.

"How lovely is your dwelling place O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God" (Psalm 84:1-2).

Let's begin with a simple question, "What do you want?"

Some of you may be looking in the refrigerator to get some breakfast. I'm not interested in your breakfast. This is one of those annoyingly profound questions like what you want your legacy to be. What do you want for your life? or from your life?

I get irritated with stories in which a character immediately knows the answer to such a question. I find it depends on the day and the things happening around me. I'm not always sure if there is one thing that I really want.

We all have appetites and longings: a bigger house; a faster car; better make-up; successful children; political position.

We want many things. But getting these things doesn't satisfy. In fact, they tend to kill us. We humans have an infernal habit of mistaking the things God gives for the God who gives them. We tend to worship the things God gives, rather than God himself. As Paul once wrote, "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised! Amen" (Romans 1:25).

God made everything for His glory, to reveal His greatness. The things He created all point back to Him. They remind us that He is our true home, our destination. Sin makes creatures our home rather than God to whom they point. Worshipping God's creation will be our death.

The psalmist knew this. He was away from Jerusalem and longed to be home. Not because he worshipped that city but because in Jerusalem was God's temple, God's presence on earth. That is where he encountered God. That was joy.

This is even truer for us, followers of Jesus. We are his temple. God is right here, where we are. But do we want him? is he our joy? We can take either of two roads. On the one road, we focus on all the things that we can't enjoy right now and feed our longing for them.

The other road is the one the psalmist took. Rather, than feeding his longings for stuff, he fed his longing for God. We can take that road too. We can ask the Spirit to sift our desires so that we increasingly desire him. Then, when someone asks us that irritating question, "What do you want out of life?" we know our answer.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the God who gives hope fill you with great joy. May you have perfect peace as you trust in him. May the power of the Holy Spirit fill you with hope.