My wife and I have three small Amazon Alexa (Echo Dot®) devices. Since my office is separate from our home, using it like an intercom is handy. When she wants to tell me something or ask a question, my wife says, “Alexa, drop in on Office Dot,” and “Bob’s your uncle!” we’re having a quick chat.
I would have loved to be in the meeting when Amazon engineers chose “drop in” as Alexa’s alert phrase to start the intercom feature. I remember when friends and families used to “drop in.” Depending on how close you were to those friends or family, you could drop in without prior notice! Occasionally, these drop-ins precipitated some awkward situations, but often that was part of the fun.
A marvelous wonder came over the visitors and visited when we came face-to-face. Gone were our attempts at imagining grins and wagging heads and old men scratching their bald heads. There was palpable healing for most (not all) friends and families when they gathered in our home or we in their home.
We have rediscovered the value of faces through our use of Zoom, Facebook, and Microsoft Teams. Still, these technologies fall short of physically being together.
In Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth, he wrote to tell them:
“But God, who encourages those who are discouraged, encouraged us by the arrival of Titus.”
2 Corinthians 7:6
We can see that even a weathered, old missionary like Paul can suffer from discouragement. He needed a friend to drop in on him, and God provided for Paul’s needs.
How often have you and I “felt” a tug at our hearts to drop in on someone, but we shrugged it off, using one of a hundred reasons why that tug was just foolish? Perhaps it was, but then it might have been a prompt by the Holy Spirit. Which is better, to feel the tug but ignore it or feel the tug and, by faith, go ahead and drop in?
God may not have revealed my discouragement, but don’t mistakenly leave me to languish. Go ahead and drop in; let me see your face.
Photo by RODNAE Productions: https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-looking-at-the-ultrasound-result-6149028/
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