Living In The Gap

As a teen, our daughter would have loved to live in The Gap, the trendy clothing store at the mall.  Many of us live in the gap, but it’s a gaping hole between jobs or perhaps relationships.  There are gaps in our health (I had three surgeries at three hospitals in two months for one stubborn kidney stone).  No one wants to live in those gaps, but they are inevitable.

There are two major gaps in the life of Jesus.  Twelve years separate the story of Christ as an infant and Christ as a twelve-year old.  Then an eighteen-year gap between twelve-years old and the beginning of His ministry at age thirty.

Luke 2 fills in those gaps with two short verses.  Between infancy and pre-teen:

“And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him,” Luke 2:40 NET.

And between twelve and thirty:

“And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and with people,” Luke 2:52 NET.

We rarely think of Jesus, the Son of God, needing to grow in wisdom and maturity, but that is exactly what Luke records.

As gaps open up in my life, my first reaction is to panic or get depressed.  But the gap is also a time that God, in His grace, can help us to mature and grow through the experience.  And pray it doesn’t last twelve or eighteen years!

PRAYER: Father, may Your grace and blessing be with me during life’s gaps.  And may I use them as a time of spiritual growth.

Today’s devotion by James N. Watkins is reprinted by permission from www.jameswatkins.com  copyright © 2009.  He is the author of fifteen books, including Squeezing Good Out of Bad, and over two thousand articles.  He has spoken across the United States as well as overseas.