I talk a lot about sowing seed, particularly about investing time in people so they can follow Jesus and help others do the same. Sometimes we see results and sometimes not.

We had a pleasant surprise a few days ago when Steve and Mildred McNair of Clinton, Mississippi, called us because they were in Colorado Springs and wanted to see us. We all scrambled, but within two hours of the initial contact, we were sitting down to dinner together.

Why did they and we want to get together? Because in 1971 Mildred and her twin sister Marian were high schoolers in Biloxi, MS, when we arrived there for an Air Force assignment. We (mostly June!) were privileged to spend time with them, studying the Bible together, helping them walk with God and plan for the future. Here’s what I just heard from Steve:

I just wanted you to know how much Mildred and I appreciate the time spent with you in Colorado Springs on Sept 27.  Mildred knew she wanted to make contact. We had a good time talking about her knowing you both in Biloxi back in the early ’70s.  The obvious, most important thing is that you connected with her and Marian and they profited from your instruction in the Word.  God inspired Mildred early in her life to pray for an eventual marriage to a Christian man.  God answered my prayer for a Christian wife.  We were talking in the car about Psalm 19. ‘The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.’  I connected Jesus’ words about the great commandments in the law to that Psalm verse in the following way: ‘you shall love your neighbor as your self’ is substituted into the Psalm 19 verse (almost like algebra).  Your Christian love for Mildred, back in time and currently, revives the soul!  More simply, perhaps, the love that believers show for one another revives the soul. The Savior would have it that way.

That’s encouraging! And thought-provoking: “Love that believers show for one another revives the soul.”

But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, just as we also long to see you. Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 3.6 – 8, NIV)