Daily Devotional #1,645

We have some wonderful friends from church who grow almonds. The trees have been harvested but a lot of  good almonds are laying on the ground and can’t be picked up by machine. So, they invited us to come out and  receive the gift of wonderful almonds that just have to be picked up off the ground. Now there is a lot of other  stuff on that ground, so you have to pretty much hand pick them and throw them in a bag. That takes time.  They were so gracious and showed us the best places to easily get as many almonds as we wanted. Now we  ended up just sitting on the ground pitching them into our bags. But the cool thing was that they joined us and  sat with us, and they picked up their own almonds and put them in bags like we did…and then gave them to us.  But what was best was that we spent that time just talking with each other. Just sharing about all kinds of stuff.  We got a lot of almonds, but we also got a great dose of friendship and love. When we got all we could handle  and we all headed home I wondered why things like this don’t happen more often. We just get so busy we don’t  have time to just do some simple chore with people we call friends. The Apostle Paul wrote the Thessalonian  church and told them that he was thankful for them because their faith was flourishing and their love for one  another was growing. Look for those opportunities to both love and to be loved by other folks. And to have  those times when it seems like the clock is turned back to the days when people just enjoyed simple things and  appreciated getting to spend time with each other. And I’m pretty sure that growing faith and growing love are tied together. So, take time for people. People are God’s business…let them be yours too. Here’s our Bible  verse for today…  
 2 Thessalonians 1:3 NLT Dear brothers and sisters, we can’t help but thank God for you, because your faith is  flourishing and your love for one another is growing.  
Remember I’m praying for you!  
With love, PJ