Would You Trade 30 for 3

This post came up in a conversation this week and I figured I would repost. Ironically I posted this to another blog  exactly a year ago. Some concepts keep coming around and around I suppose. Enjoy.

No this is not a trick question - like trading 30 pennies for 3 dollars.

This is a straight exchange. Would you trade 30 for 3. 

Jesus arrived on earth as a newborn baby boy. We read of his experience teaching at the temple when he was 12. Then we hear this:  "Jesus grew..." (Luke 2:52) 30 years of life defined by birth and one experience when he was 12. Then...

Then he explodes onto the scene and spends the next three years setting in motion a revolution that has shaped heart and minds for 2000 years. 

So for 30 years Jesus grew. In wisdom. In stature. In favor with man. In favor with God.

To define a focus, a passion, a mission, a purpose. 

Then he spent 3 years executing the plan. 

Now Jesus could have conquered the world as a little baby. "Ga-ga. goo-goo" could have been as powerful a statement as "Follow me." 

But he was experienced 30 years of molding, of testing, of learning - all for 3 short years of ministering. 

Could you fathom doing what Jesus did? Would you trade 30 for 3. Would you work 30 years as a stock boy for just three years as CEO? Would you trade 30 years of nursing for only 3 of running a hospital? Would you carry the bags of all the team members for 30 years just to be the general manager for 3. 

30 for 3. Then its all over. Would you?

Thats a hard question for us. Especially when we think that 2 minutes is entirely too long to download an entire album from iTunes. You know an album that took months/years to finish and perfect.

I can't honestly say to you that I would be willing to wait 30 years to be used for 3. I would like to but then I would be lying. I want much less than 30 and much more than 3. But my prayer, for both you an I, is that we can see the "30", not as obscurity or insignificance, but as a crucial part of becoming God wants us to be and a crucial part of the "3"