Towards a Genuine Concern

“I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy’s proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel. I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also.”
-Philippians 2:19-24

Jesus Christ, son of God, great Shepherd of the sheep, hear my prayer, and guide me by your Spirit of truth to follow your heavenly Father.

These your words, and others of them besides, I have been tasked to expound and preach in my class. Like all those who belong to you, I ought to labor and learn as though you yourself were my teacher and master. And even though I am not yet permitted to preach in your church, this assignment is given in preparation for such a calling.

Therefore I ought to fear. I confess I have drifted thoughtlessly into casual self-reliance. I have become my own “refuge and strength”; I have despised your aid and even the aid of others. These many years in schooling have given me a student’s conceit which spurns preparation, diligence and study. Supreme is my confidence that I can accomplish any task with the most minimal self-investment.

Yet this is not so of Timothy and Epaphroditus and Paul. This is certainly not true of yourself–you who took humanity so far upon yourself as to die in it. So genuine is your concern for our welfare that you undertake flesh to be broken and shared, blood to be spilled and given to sustain. Your Father sent you, his beloved “as a son with a father,” and in doing so came, in his very essence, to be with us whom he so loved. May I, too, send and be sent, stirred by the great love with which you love us, to give of myself, to love with deep compassion and to have genuine concern. Forgive me for failing to image you, O Christ. Sear your beautiful perfections into my gaze, that I may be renewed after your likeness. Blessed be your Father, You and Your Spirit, Amen.

Doxology

Hast thou heard Him, seen Him, known Him?
Is not thine a captured heart?
Chief among ten thousand own Him;
Joyful choose the better part.
–Hast Thou Heard Him, Seen Him, Known Him? by Ora Rowan.