master carpenter
Jesus began the major part of His ministry at age 30... so what did He do for the first 30 years of his life? We have a couple of snapshots like the time He went to the temple as a boy and amazed even the elders of the church with His knowledge. However, we don't really know much about His life before age 30. It can only be assumed that He spent his time learning carpentry, because his earthly father Joseph was a carpenter, and most trades were passed from father to son through the generations. If this is true, then Jesus probably had close to 20 years of carpentry experience by the time He began his three year ministry that would ultimately end in his crucifiction, resurrection and ascencion into heaven.
Ok, so Jesus had 20 years of experience building things... is that really important? To me it means a lot. Think about how long it takes to build things. A typical two-story home is usually built in about two months. The Empire State Building in New York City was completed in under 8 months. So obviously man can build some pretty big things pretty quickly.
Ok, so how fast does God build? He made the heavens and the earth in 6 days. Thats pretty impressive.
So what does that have to do with us? Well about 2000 years ago Jesus ascended into heaven and said "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:2-3 NIV). So we know that God can build something as amazing as the heavens and the earth in 6 days. So we can only imagine the kinds of things His Son, who actually had 20 years of carpentry training, could build in 6 days. There are well over 120,000 six-day periods in 2000 years. So look at how awesome the earth and the entire universe is and multiply that by 120,000. Thats how long Jesus has been "preparing a place" for us in heaven. So just think about that for a minute...