I Know Where My Peoples Are

     Good morning, folks.  Once again, I must apologize for falling behind in posting a blog regularly.  I have had to work some extra long hours lately and it has hindered this endeavor.  So I am posting this morning before I leave in case work goes extra long tonight too.  This post will probably be shorter than most.
     Wednesday night, I was priveliged once again to teach the 2 and 3 year old Bible class.  They are such sweet children at that age and I really enjoy talking to them and listening to them. Anyway, the children were in rare form Wednesday.  I tell you, sometimes I wish I had a tape recorder going - just so I could remember and treasure every thing those sweet kids say.  I have often felt that way through the years, but I try to remember as much as I can and write it down when I get home.
     Anyway, back to class Wednesday night.  The children were very talkative and I just kept thinking about how precious they were.  (In case you are wondering, we did have a class.  We talked about the days of creation.)  The bell rang and class time ended.  One student's aunt came to get her; and I helped the other student gather his things.  His big sister usually comes by to get him, but last night she didn't.  The classroom opens directly into our auditorium so as we stood at the door, he looked up at me and said - "Don't worry, I know where my peoples are."  And he proceeded across the auditorium to sit with his family.  Sweet!  I just loved it.
      That precious little statement got me to thinking about "my peoples."  :)  Naturally, I mean my spiritual family.  Do we know our church family - do we know "where they are?"  Do we love them - long to be with them - reach out to them when we know they need help?  Do we reach out to them when we need help?  After all, these are "our peoples."  We belong to each other.  We are all members of the same body - that is,  the body of Christ.  We are part of the same family. 
     Personally, I love my peoples.  I do love being with them and fellowshipping with them.  I am close to many of my people and lean on them for support.  In return, I try to offer support, comfort and love to them.  They are a great group of folks, my peoples!  And I love being associated with them. 
     Thinking about this from another perspective - and I mentioned this earlier -- do we know where our people are spiritually?  Our devotion Wednesday could be somewhat tied into this because the speaker asked us all a question - which was "Where are you?"  He challenged us all to evaluate our own spiritual lives.  He asked us if we could say we had grown and matured and learned more over the past year, six months and even the past week.  His point was that we are supposed to be growing all the time.  With that in mind, are we helping our people grow, too?  Once we can evaluate our own lives, then we can decide if we are helping our own congregation in its growth and maturity.  Hopefully, we are not hindering it in any way.  Remember our church family is part of the body of Christ.  Surely we wouldn't want to do anything but good for Christ, our Savior.
      I will close these thoughts with a challenge to all to learn to love your "peoples."  Be kind and understanding toward one another.  My sweet little friend went to his family with full confidence in the knowledge that he would be received and welcomed, loved and accepted for who he is.  He knows that he is a member of that family, with all its benefits.  He has faith in them that they will take care of him and treat him as one of their own.  This, my friends is how we are to treat our "peoples"  our church family.  It is a joy to be with our fellow Christians.  And it is a commandment that we learn to love one another as Christ has loved us.  After all, He is the head of the family - the church.

Blessing to all of you "peoples" today.  And remember always-
Christ above all things,
Robin