“For this reason, when I could no longer stand it, I also sent him to find out about your faith, fearing that the tempter had tempted you and that our labor might be for nothing.” (v. 5)

Think, for a moment, about that person you’ve lost track of.

Maybe you were church together for a season. Maybe you were a part of their earliest days in the faith. Maybe, for a time, you were friends in Christian community.

But now you’ve lost track. You haven’t seen them. However much you might miss them—and, you hope, they might miss you—you aren’t currently connected.

I encourage you in Paul’s example:

Check on them. Reach out. Don’t presume that all is well, that they remain firm in the faith, that they are yet overflowing with hope. Check on them!

My prayer is that we will be surprised by (and comforted by) the faithfulness we will find when we find them. But if we find them wandering, we ought to keep going to them and keep going for them, in prayer.

Paul didn’t know what he would hear when he finally reconnected with his friends at Thessalonica. And we don’t know what we’ll hear, either. Yet we can check on whoever they are wherever they are—and we can hope to find them faithful.

— Tyler