Three Days for Faith

by Chris Tiegreen
DESCRIPTION

Your dark days aren’t designed to kill your faith. They're actually opportunities to find it.
“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49 NIV)

The story couldn’t have been funny at the time, though his parents may have looked back on it with a smile. But today’s reader can be excused for chuckling. Mary and Joseph were given one job—to look after the Son of God—and they lost him. For three days after discovering he wasn’t in the caravan heading home, they searched high and low in Jerusalem. Finally, they found him at the Temple impressing the rabbis.

It wasn’t the only time Jesus went missing for three days. The second time, his relatives, friends, and followers scattered while he lay in a tomb, then wondered who had taken his body. It was even more catastrophic and frantic for them than Mary and Joseph’s search years before. He didn’t ask the same question when he finally appeared to his followers, but he conveyed the same sense of wonder: “Why were you searching for me? I told you what needed to happen.” In both cases, he gave those who love him three dark days to find their faith. They didn’t exactly, at least not at first. But he certainly proved himself worthy of it.

You’ll have dark days too, and they aren’t designed to kill your faith. They are actually opportunities to find it. If you can see through the darkness and into the light of his promises, you’ll find him there. He will meet you, not to ask you why you were searching but to honor your faith in the dark. There you’ll find hope and resurrection—and a Rabbi-Savior worthy of your belief.