It is possible to attend church, pray, and keep every routine while quietly losing touch with Jesus himself. Here is how we lose him, and how we find him again.
One of the greatest tragedies imaginable is to live the whole Christian life and somehow miss Jesus himself. You come to church. You pray. You do everything that is expected of you. And yet, if you are honest, it can start to feel like a routine, a ritual, a set of motions you go through without ever meeting the One the motions were meant to lead you to.
That is exactly what happened to Mary and Joseph. They traveled to Jerusalem for the feast, worshiped, and set out for home again, assuming Jesus was somewhere in the company. He was not. They had lost the very Son of God and did not even realize it. Their story, in Luke 2, is both a warning and an encouragement. A warning to those of us who feel sure we are standing but do not see how far we may have drifted. An encouragement to anyone who has quietly longed for something sweeter and more real with Jesus.
When revelation hardens into tradition
The first way we lose Jesus is by turning something that was once a living revelation into a lifeless tradition. A revelation is something God shows a people to give them insight for a particular situation at a particular time. Scripture calls it the rhema of God, the word that proceeds fresh from his mouth. A tradition is something we construct to cover every situation, for all time, whether or not God is still in it.
Luke tells us that Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem every year, and that this particular year they went up 'after the custom of the feast.' Not because they were led by God that year, but because it was simply what they always did. And after the custom of the feast, they went back home again, only this time Jesus had stayed behind to be about his Father's business.
Remember who this couple was. They had been led by God to marry, led by God to flee to Egypt, led by God to return to Israel and settle in Nazareth. They knew what it was to move at God's word. But on this trip they moved by custom, and the custom carried them a full day's journey away from Jesus.
We do the same. Because God once spoke to you in a certain year to pray a certain way, now every year you pray that way. Because he led you once to do a thing, you have made that thing a permanent rule, and you may even insist that everyone else keep it too. Man is a creature of habit; God is not. In Mark 7, Jesus rebuked those who exalted their traditions over the living revelation of God. The Spirit is like the wind — he blows where he wills. So pause and ask honestly: is there a revelation you are still clutching as tradition? Has God moved on while you have lingered behind?
When we only suppose he is with us
The second way we lose Jesus is more subtle. We keep going without any tangible experience of his presence, all the while assuming he is with us. The text is piercing: 'But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey' (Luke 2:44).
They supposed. They had not spoken with him for days, had not heard his voice, had not seen his face for a whole day, yet they supposed he was in the company. Does this not describe us? No fellowship, no touch of the Spirit, no clear encounter, and still we suppose he is here. We go from prayer meeting to prayer meeting and worship service to worship service, and where nothing is changing we comfort ourselves by quoting, 'where two or three are gathered, he is in the midst.' But it rarely occurs to us that if he were truly, powerfully in our midst, the sick would be healed, the broken would be mended, and people far from God would be found.
How long have some of us gone, simply supposing? A year? Five years? Ten? Moses refused to live that way. When God told him to lead the people up, Moses answered, 'If your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here' (Exodus 33:15). He would not take a single step on assumption. He wanted the certainty of God's nearness, not the crowd's momentum. God is not a God of the crowd. That everyone is doing a thing, that the whole company is moving in one direction, does not mean God is in it. The company must follow God; God does not follow the company.
So ask yourself plainly: right now, do you know for certain that God's presence is with you, or have you merely assumed it? When did you last have a real encounter with him, the kind that shakes the foundation of your being? There needs to be a constant, holy hunger for his presence, a refusal to keep walking as though he were near when we have not heard from him in a long time.
The telltale sign: seeking him in people
Losing his presence produces a symptom worth naming. When we have lost Jesus, we begin to look for him in other people. It shows up in two ways.
The first is outsourcing. Some gifted man or woman of God becomes our 'Papa' or 'Mama,' the one who carries Jesus for us. We who are called to introduce people to Jesus can now, at best, introduce them to someone else who seems to know him. The second and more damaging way is that we quietly make people into gods. We start demanding from people what only God can give. We look to family and friends for perfect faithfulness, unconditional love, and complete understanding of our situation. And the result is predictable: we are constantly disappointed, constantly heartbroken. Like Mary and Joseph, we search everywhere, sorrowing, and the people cannot fill the space that only God was ever meant to fill.
Do you know why God is never disillusioned with us? Because he was never under any illusions about us in the first place. He knows exactly what we are — dust of the earth, held together by his mercy. He does not need us to be his source, and he never asked us to be anyone else's source either.
Found in the Father's business
So how do we find Jesus when we have lost him, and how do we keep from losing him at all? The answer is hidden in his own words to his parents when they finally found him: 'Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?' (Luke 2:49).
The one place you can be certain, one hundred percent of the time, to find Jesus is in the midst of the Father's business. Commit yourself entirely to that business, and you will never turn revelation into dead tradition, because if the business is not getting done, you will know at once that his presence is missing. You will not have the time or the appetite to hunt for Jesus among your acquaintances, because you will be consumed with the work he cares about.
And what is the Father's business? Jesus named it plainly: 'As you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils' (Matthew 10:7-8). It is the reason he was manifested, to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). It is the anointing he read over himself in Nazareth: good news to the poor, healing for the brokenhearted, freedom for the captive (Luke 4:18-19).
Be careful here. The Father's business is not the same as church attendance. Church exists to carry out the Father's business, but it is not itself the business. In fact, it is often inside church and its traditions that people most easily lose Jesus. You could even say Mary and Joseph lost him while engaged in a religious activity. So this is not a call to add more meetings to your week. It is a call to give yourself to what actually heals the sick, frees the captive, and raises the dead.
When your single focus is the Father's business, you stop fussing over who is wearing what or whether the service opens with prophecy or with praise. Your one question becomes: does this truly bring the presence and power of God? You will press in and press in until you can say, 'Lord, whatever it takes, I want to see the sick made whole.' And then you will find him — perhaps in a word of prophecy, perhaps in the laying on of hands, perhaps in worship or in tongues. You will not go to Jerusalem simply because that is where the Father went last year; you will go only where the Father is going now.
All I need is you
So if you are in a dry season, feeling as though God is far away, here is the way home. Lay down the deadening routines. Let go of the revelation you have hardened into tradition. Stop assuming he is in the company, and say to him instead, I will not move a step until I truly know you are with me, because I am giving myself to your business. Stop searching for him in people who were never meant to carry him.
Come to him this morning with an honest, undivided heart, and tell him the simplest and truest thing you could ever pray: that of all you could ask for, all you really need is him. When you draw that near, seeking his face and his work above everything else, you will find that the One you thought was lost was only ever a step away, waiting to be found.