Abandoned

When I was four or so, my family was moving, I think to Fort Leonardwood in Missouri.  We stopped at a service station (back in the days when service was provided at gas stations) to fuel up and empty out our bladders.  When I came out of the restroom, I saw our family car pulling away.  I stood there in disbelief as the tail lights shrank out of view.  My little heart sank as the feeling of abandonment grew within me.  My family had left me behind, I would never see them again.

At least that was what I thought.  The service station attendant saw me standing near the pump crying.  He came over and said, "Don't worry, your folks will be right back to get you."  I looked up with tear-filled eyes and replied, "No they won't.  We're moving away.  They are never coming back!"

Well, it wasn't long before someone noticed the blonde-haired, blue-eyed kid wasn't in the car and they turned around (possibly at the protest of my siblings) and came back for me.  I never was actually abandoned, there were simply so many kids and so many distractions that I was overlooked in the general mayhem of the Kensers on the move.  What appeared to me to be a singular, world-shaking event, was actually a fairly common oversight.  Even Jesus himself was overlooked when his family was returning home from Jerusalem (cf. Lk 2:43)

Jesus, however, as a boy of 12, did not feel abandoned when his family traveled on without him.  He was busy in his Father's house (cf. vs 49), talking with the elders.  He would not feel abandoned until much later, at the age of 33 as he hung from the cross, overwhelmed in pain and life ebbing from his body.  In a moment of human desperation he cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mk 15:34).

God, of course, was not forsaking him.  Everything that was happening was part of His plan for Jesus' victory over death and our redemption from the power of death: "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 15:56-57).  What was God's plan in action looked and felt like God abandoning his Son.  But nothing could have been further from the truth - a truth that Jesus wrapped his mind around in his final moments saying, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Lk 23:46).

As a child of God, there may well be times when your overburdened humanity may lose sight of God's purpose and presence.  You may very well feel abandoned due to the awful circumstance of the moment.  But it is not true, you will never be abandoned by God, who promises, "I will not leave you as orphans" (Jn 14:18).  The feeling is real but that reality is only a feeling.  The truth is that God never abandons his children.  He is always near, even when we don't feel his presence.  Jus' Say'n.