Investing in Others
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God that is in Corinth, including all the saints throughout Achaia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 1:1-2)
The art of letter writing has become a bit of a lost art. In a world of quick emails, 140 character tweets on Twitter, and text messaging we often rely on quick, terse communications to get our point across. For the most part, the long letters we get are form letters that have been generated by merging our name and address into some template that has been sent to thousands of people. It pretends to be personal and extensive. In reality, it is just mass produced propaganda.
So when we read a letter like Paul wrote to the people in Corinth, it can seem a little foreign to us. In fact, the two verses above are too long to fit on Twitter! There are over fifty too many letters and spaces in them to qualify for a tweet!
The time and energy that it can take to invest in writing a personal note or letter to someone is well worth the effort. It shows Paul’s concern for the people there. It demonstrates that the time it takes to write this was worth spending since the people there are important to him and their ministry is important to the whole church. His words of teaching, shaping, encouraging and praying are so powerful that they were written for a small group of Christians in the early church – they ended up becoming scripture for use by millions of Christians over twenty centuries.
Never underestimate the power of your words or the value of investing time and energy in other people. In fact, true leaders spend a lot of time and energy investing in others. They do so because the work paves the way for ministry to happen for years to come.
So, who have you invested time and energy in lately in order to encourage and nurture them? Is there someone God may be calling you to take the time to sit down and write a note of encouragement to? Maybe today is the perfect time to set aside a few minutes to do it. Who knows what God will do with it if you do!
