Reading Letters

Your very lives are a letter that
anyone can read by just looking at you.

2 Corinthians 3:3 (The Message)

There is a definite downside to our contemporary culture and that is the loss of the handwritten letter. With e-mail our thoughts become shortened and less, well, thoughtful. It’s a quick medium demanding an instantly quick response. There is little that we would want to read over and over again. I cherish the thick 35 year old letter that is tucked away in my heirloom box with my Dad’s signature. I have read it more than once.

Reading is essential to learning and so the communicated word becomes vital to our growth. We are “read” by whoever we encounter through the day. Our actions, our words, our responses all communicate who we are and what we’re feeling.

Residents of the world can read a hundred books on the life of Jesus but the most impressive will be reading a life that lives for Jesus. How we allow Christ to write on our lives will ultimately communicate how important he is in our lives. It’s a letter that will be read over and over again by friends, family, co-workers, anyone. It’s sobering and deeply convicting.

Each day our lives should be a visible letter that bears the signature of Jesus.

Jesus, write Yourself on my life.
Help me to live each day with the
thought that I am being read and in
the reading people are learning about You.
Amen.

In honor of a very dear friend who recently reminded me of this particular verse. Thank you.