Senior Minister Devotional Blog	Past Devotional Blogs
	2007
June 2, 2008	2008
"Checkin' Up On Those You Love”

I Thessalonians 3:5
“… when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith.”

We do it all the time.  Every one of us.  My wife and I have a son who is now officially out on his own.  So we call and text and email and any other form of communication we can devise to simply ask one thing.  “How you doin’?”  Nowadays it’s primarily to find out if he has any food in his refrigerator!  We’re proud of him for making it on his own, but nervous about the meeting of his basic needs.

Not long ago we were asked to do the same thing with a neighbor.  This gentlemen would be on his own for a few days, so his relatives wanted to know if we would stop by a couple times a day to simply ask, “How you doin?”  That, also, was a specific interrogation.  Have you eaten today?  Did you remember to take your medicine?  Are you alive?  (That one kind of freaked me out!)

I stopped in a hospital room today and asked the patient, “How you doin?”  Someone ran into me the other day whom I hadn’t seen in for a few years.  Last we talked I was looking for a job.  Want to know what they asked me?  You guessed it, “How you doin’?”  (Do you have a job?  Can you pay your bills?).  I had dinner the other night with a friend who is still reeling from the fresh pangs of grief.  The question eventually came up.  “How you doin?”  You know what that means.  Are you sleeping at night?  Are the tears getting any less?  Does it still hurt? 

We all do it.  Checkin’ up on people.  And we do it because we care, which is a good thing.  But before I throw water on your fire, the scripture above really slammed me when I first read it today.  I check up on people every day, in one manner or another.  But I’m not sure I do what Paul did. 

Paul loved the saints at Thessalonica.  If he had a cell phone like almost every American does today, he simply would have punched the speed dial and rang the office of someone at Thessalonica.  But technology hadn’t caught up with need yet in the first century, so he had to incorporate the services of a courier.  Timothy, go to Thessalonica and ask them the question.  Get ready, here it comes.  “How you all doin?” 

But did you catch it?  His inquisition had nothing to do with basic necessities of life, like food or recovering from bad health or financially stability.  No, his concern was much more long-term in thinking.  How are you doing in your faith?  Are you and God still on the same page?  Are you finding enough time to talk to God every day? 

I am almost embarrassed by the scripture.  I check up on people all the time.  If I had a dollar every time I asked, “how you do…”.  You get the picture.  But I don’t know the last time I asked someone how they were coming along in their faith.  Shame on me. 

To whom could you ask this?  Perhaps just by asking the question it may steer someone back to a walk with God, or convince someone else to stay on the walk.  But we have to ask it.  So here goes.  “How you doin’?”, and I’m not talking dinner, health, or money.