Psalm 20, 21/23, 27 [morning/evening]
1 Kings 17:17-24
John 4:46-54
3 John 1-15
[Note: Read the passages from 1 Kings and John together...beautiful symmetry]
3 John 13-14 reads, "I have much more to say to you, but I don't want to write it with pen and ink. For I hope to see you soon, and then we will talk face to face."
I'm terrible about getting together with friends. I have a suspicion that many of my friends think I can be a little bit of a flake. And while this sometimes happens to married people, I've always been like this. Given the opportunity to stay at home with a book or a project or meet up with a friend for coffee, I'll most likely choose the book every time. I'm a homebody. A little bit of a loner.
But this week, I've scheduled (see how warm and fuzzy my language is?) two get togethers with friends. A dear girlfriend is arriving in just a few minutes for a long-talked about coffee, and I'm finally following through with a six month old invitation tomorrow. But I don't feel like an anti-social person on any normal day. There's facebook, email, the sometimes hundreds of people I see every week, phone calls, casual encounters with family or friends at church. But there's something about the way John ends his third and final letter that makes me pause.
There are some things that can only be understood face to face. Pen and ink have their limitations.
