Catching Up

Catching Up

“Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing”

-1 Thessalonians 5:11

When I was an elementary age child, my best friend was Hayden Shirley. Hayden lived one mile down the road and we played on the same t-ball team that his dad coached. Both of us were talented athletes as younger kids and excelled in sports. For a couple years, we played sports together until his father took a job in Dallas. 

Every summer, Hayden and I would meet up at church camp and be two peas in a pod once again. There was something special about how we played basketball in particular; without having played with each other for a year we somehow always knew where the other was moving. We would tell everybody that it didn’t matter if we didn’t live near each other, we were “soul brothers”. 

This past summer, Hayden had a beautiful wedding with his family and close friends; at least that is what I could gather from the Facebook photos as I was not invited. I do not mean to share this story to gain pity or belittle anyone, but to demonstrate how time and distance can harm our relationships. The Hebrew writer says it this way:

“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” (3:13).

God, as our creator, understands us at the deepest level. He knows that we not only need to stay in contact with one another, but to actively encourage one another. God designed his church as a collaboration of believers. Whenever we fail to build one another up, we are creating opportunity for those relationships to deteriorate and hearts to harden, which ultimately leads to the church becoming ineffective.

I Love YOU,

Jonathan Long