2 Thessalonians 1:3

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. ESV

Wisps of soft white cotton rolled across the road, blown by the fall breeze. The bank of scruffy weeds along the shoulder acted as a barricade, stockpiling the stray bolls. From a distance, it looked like a small snow drift. Cotton harvest had just ended in central Louisiana, leaving soft, fluffy reminders blown along the roadway.

I certainly never realized seeing cotton bolls strewn along the highway would bring back so many memories. Mama used to tell us stories of the cotton fields and how she worked them as a young girl. My mama was the daughter of a sharecropper in Mississippi. One of her chores was to help pick the cotton bolls during harvest. We joked about her being a cotton-pickin’ cotton picker! But it was hard, hard work, something Mama said she would never do again, if she could help it.

Mama’s daddy had an old mule he would use to help plow up the fields for planting. So many times that old mule would just STOP in the middle of a row. No more plowing. He wouldn’t budge an inch. I suppose he was tired, and decided he would just wait out in the field for someone to unhitch him and take him home to the barn.

In today’s scripture, Paul was addressing the believers in Thessalonica. They were suffering persecution, and wrongly assumed God’s judgement had begun. The result of this incorrect teaching was that many of the believer’s stopped working, and decided to just sit and wait for Christ’s return. Stubborn as a mule, you might say…

Haven’t we all been at this point from time to time? Won’t you join me today over at Sweet to the Soul? We’ll delve into Paul’s heart for his brothers and sisters in Christ, and see how our thankfulness for others can be an encouragement to them.

Grace be with you,