Day 32: Jesus is Preoccupied With Our Well-being

I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. JOHN 17:9–12 NIV, EMPHASIS MINE

I HAD LOTS OF professional counseling as well as peer counseling (with other adoptive parents) before bringing Missy home from Haiti and one of the common rules of thumb was to be careful about overstimulation while she was settling in. I was warned specifically about making too much of a fuss during our first major holidays together. Both the counselor and other experienced adoptive parents said too many gifts or celebratory revelry would likely overwhelm her and possibly even cause some type of trauma response after the extreme scarcity she was used to in Haiti.

Remarkable restraint is the only way to describe me during our first Christmas together. Especially since I’d initially planned a Clark Griswold, enough-outdoor-lights-to-attract-small-planes and enough-gifts-to-fill-the-living-room-floor kind of affair! I reluctantly scrapped the elaborate light display and scaled way back on purchases (even though it about killed me to cancel the order for the pony with pink satin ribbons braided in her mane and tail!). Of course, my friends and counselor were right. Missy was pleased with her small assortment of modest gifts, especially a little battery-operated train. We spent most of our first Christmas Day together peacefully sprawled out in the living room watching that tiny, three-car train go round and round and round. It was a lovely, low-key affair.

However, the following Christmas—and every Christmas since—I decided not to leave well enough alone. I’ve waited to be a parent for decades doggone it, which means I’ve earned the right to stay up all night on Christmas Eve putting together giant, complex toys and things to ride that come with real motors and instructions printed in foreign languages! And I’m happy to report that despite the multiple broken fingernails, bruises, and gashes (no kidding, I can show you the scars) I’ve sustained while putting together bikes and four-wheelers and scooters and Segways (yep, but it was a small, noncommercial one) through the years, Missy has never been overwhelmed (mind you, she’s been underwhelmed a time or two by “educational” toys), much less injured. Because even though I tend to transform into Santa-on-steroids for a few weeks each December, my inner protective-mama always wins out to the point that I have double safety mechanisms installed on my daughter’s various assortment of go-go gadgets and her helmet is sturdy enough to withstand an elephant pirouetting on top of it. I might get a little carried away at Christmas, but I’m not about to let my kid get hurt!

As preoccupied as I am with Missy’s well-being, isn’t it comforting to know that Jesus is infinitely more so with ours? In our Savior’s High Priestly prayer, which He uttered soon after Judas’s betrayal (the only one “doomed to destruction”) and right before His arrest in the garden of Gethsemane, He pleads with God the Father for our safety. And don’t miss the poignancy of the context here, y’all; it’s Thursday night of Passion Week . . . Good Friday Eve. Which means His tortuous death on the cross is right around the corner. And because Jesus is omniscient (remember He’s of the exact nature and substance of God), He knows His murder is imminent. He knows He’s not safe. Yet instead of pleading with Yahweh for His own well-being, He pleads for ours!

And the specific words He uses when He prays for our salvific protection add a big exclamation point to our super-secure position as those guarded by the King of all kings: “While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe” (John 17:12a, emphasis mine). Because while the verbs “protected” (phulassō in the original Greek) and “kept” (tēreō in the original Greek) are synonymous, one is in the aorist tense, which usually denotes an action in past tense, and one is in the imperfect tense, which usually denotes an action in the present tense.24 All that fancy, syntax footwork simply means is we are continuously protected by Jesus. Which is so much better than having your mom Bubble Wrap the walls of your college dorm room, which may very well be a future chapter in Missy’s story!

• ONE OF my favorite love songs in college was sung by an English rock band called The Police and it includes the lyrics: “Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I’ll be watching you.”25 It sounds pretty stalkerish now when I remember how passionately my nineteen-year-old boyfriend sang it, but it’s a galvanizing theological truism when it comes to Jesus and us! What emotion comes to mind when you consider the fact that Jesus is watching protectively over every step you take?
• READ 1 PETER 1:3–9. Again, the words kept and guarded (vv. 4 and 5) might sound a tad overprotective or even possessive in our current cultural context (especially if you have a Bubble-Wrapping kind of mom!), yet they’re radically promissory in the context of our relationship with Jesus. What are some other words—perhaps more comfortable/comforting to you personally—that describe the consummate and continual divine protection we get to enjoy as God’s people?
• READ JOB 1 and Psalm 119:75. In light of David’s lyric, Job’s story, and surely your own life experience, it’s obvious that God’s protection doesn’t mean we’ll be immune to pain and suffering. So what do you think Jesus was really asking when He pleaded for God to protect us?