We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. (II Thessalonians1:3)
I’ve been trying to be more appreciative of people lately –
being thankful for their help, their encouragement. Sometimes, I don’t do it
very well, and people think I’m putting them down. Maybe they’re right, but in
my mind, I’m trying to express love to them and gratitude for them. In today’s
passage, Paul wrote about how it was right for him to be thankful to God for
them because God was causing them to grow in faith and love. It’s right for us
to be thankful to God when people grow – not just in their faith and love, but
in other ways. It’s also right that Paul told the Thessalonians about it,
because Paul’s thankfulness, expressed to both God and the Thessalonians, would
act as spiritual sunshine, producing further growth.
This is part of the Body aspect of any organization, but
particularly for Christians. As you grow, your example encourages my growth. As
I overcome struggles, someone else is encouraged to trust. As someone else
trusts, you develop courage, which leads me to become more gentle, and someone
else to rejoice.
As I think about what I’m trying to do as I applaud, encourage, and engage with neighbors I don’t like (see the post from several days back) it
is so that they can use that “sunshine” to grow and in the meanwhile, my not
liking will lesson as I strengthen my capacity to love.
So the notion that it is “right” that we thank God for
growth, the growth is there, it is also right for us to do so in the hearing of
the ones who are growing – or even that we thank them – because God uses it to
cause them to grow. But we must be careful as we take on “project people”
that we remember the goal is not our glory. The goal is for both us and
them to grow as a result.
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