When Janet (my wife) and I were dating, we both spent a summer serving students and children as missionaries.   She was in south Texas and I was in central Florida.  There were no cell phones or home computers then so our communication was through letters.

We wrote each other “love letters” almost every day for 10 weeks.  I guess I’m a hopeless romantic at times because I still have all those letters she wrote me.  Sorry men, guess I just lost my man card.

That summer I lived in a small room off the back of a Pastor’s home behind the church where I served.  I can remember the steam rising off the unpaved road that led from the house to the mailbox on the main road in front of the church because it rained almost every day.  I’d make a daily trip to that mailbox with expectation in my heart because I was expecting a love letter from Janet.

When I’d get to the mailbox I’d almost always be surprised and filled with joy.  My surprise was that junk mail followed me to Florida.  The joy came from seeing a letter from Janet.

You can imagine my excitement as I tore into that junk mail, reading every detail!  No way!  But I did tear into my letter from Janet; opening it before I even left the mailbox.  I read her letter on the way back to my room, again during the day and usually once more before I went to bed at night.  I didn’t want to miss a thing!  I wanted to understand and reflect on every detail as I thought about her.  WHY?  Because I knew the author of the letter loved me, and I loved the author of the letter.

One of Satan’s biggest temptations is to get us bogged down in junk mail while disregarding God’s love letter to us.  I love to read the scripture while trying to understand and reflect on every detail because I know the actual author (who moved men to write it) loves me and I love Him.