And Jesus grew

Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men.  – Luke 2.51-52

I remember the first time this verse ever made an impact on me. We were at a teacher training seminar and the speaker was Les Ollila. He used this verse to express the importance of teaching our children or our students or whoever in four basic areas of life.

The application goes wider because I think these areas of growth are areas that we all need to grow in. As we teach our children we need to make sure that we instruct then mentally, we need to do all we can to make sure that they develop physically; we need to attend to their spiritual and their social development. It is a matter of balance. If they were important for Jesus they are important for our kids as well.

But don’t we all need to balance those four areas of our lives as well. Even as we start to age don’t we need to take care that we continue grow mentally? Isn’t it vital that we take care of our bodies even as they begin to wear down? We certainly can’t stop growing spiritually as we age. And, last, but not least, we need to always work on our social skills and not let age be an excuse to become jerks.

We need to focus on godly, Christ centred wisdom and realise that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and always draw close to the Lord and keep on loving others. There is no time to get neglectful in any of these areas.