Why do you ask a question when you already know the answer?

Great teachers use questions. 

"Where are you Adam?"  Do you really  think that God didn't know he was hiding in the bushes with Eve?

"Do you have a right to be upset Jonah?" (after God spared Ninevah)

"Which person acted liked a neighbor?" Jesus of Nazareth

In his letter to the Philippians Paul asks a rhetorical question

"So then, as Christians, do you have any encouragement? Do you have any comfort from love? Do you have any spiritual relationships? Do you have any sympathy and compassion? " (2:1)

Well, duh! Yes, of course, God and others have encouraged me. Yes people and the Lord have comforted and loved me MANY TIMES. Yes I have some precious brothers and sisters. Yesterday I spent time with my friend Billy. We had real fellowship, sharing of lives. Have I received sympathy and compassion? Many times more than I deserve - grace upon grace upon grace.

So we all know Paul's next word "THEN". Since ..... Then. If .... THEN.  OK, the "then" is coming but it would be a mistake to jump ahead. The rhetorical question, the "IF" is supposed to make us think. When someone asked a question we will often drift off in our minds searching for the answer. So don't rush, stop and think about the question. Who has encouraged you? comforted you? loved you? What spiritual relationships are you grateful for? What sympathy and compassion have you experienced?

This week my daughter Colleen wrote a card to Ione and I telling us how much she appreciated and admired us. We were so encouraged. A pastor spent time with me and said "I still need you to pastor me." He knows me, knows my sins and failures, and still he said that to me. My friend Billy sought me out to talk. I was greatly encouraged and I hope I offered him some comfort too.

Questions should make us pause and think, adjust our attitudes - increase our gratitude.

"Father God, thank you for asking questions. Thank you for slowing me down. Thank you for the encouragement, comfort, fellowship, sympathy and love that I have experienced through your people, your family. I am wowed! Thank you."

Thank you Father

"Every time I think of you I thank my God" Philippians 1:3 

Father, thank you for your forgiveness and grace towards me. Thank you for the putting in me both desire and strength to go on, to continue following you. Thank you for your love and acceptance. Thank you for my family, my loving wife, my wonderful daughters, my precocious grandson. Thank you for my mother and father, and my brothers and sisters. They have been a wonderful gift to me and I'm grateful for their love and encouragement. Thank you for my friends like Dennis Ahern, Steve Taylor, Ben Wong, Samuel Chan, and Kevin who know all about me and love me still.

Thank you for my church, JIFF, for the sisters who faithfully follow and serve you in this foreign land. Thank you for helping them to adjust to this completely weird DH lifestyle. Thank you that although they are treated as servants, sometimes slaves, you constantly remind them that they are princesses, children of the King. Thank you for Pastor Jorge and Pastor Ruel. Thank you for their faithful leadership and service. Thank you for watching over them and their families. Thank you helping PJ recently to recover from the infection he had. Thank you for continuing to provide for Pastor Ruel and the ministry of JIFF. Thank you for our leadership team, both the formal and the many informal leaders. Thank you for continuing to work in and through them. Thank you for the newcomers we meet every week. Thank you that the older sisters are reaching out to the newly arrived ladies to wrap your loving arms around them as they adjust to HK.

Thank you for Arrow. Thank you for providing customers for us to serve. Thank you for our staff who serve out of love for you and others. Thank you for the joy we feel in serving together and for the fun we have in the midst of what is sometimes very stressful. Thank you for our partner MRH and the faithful team they have there. Thank you for Ma'am Nely and Rowena. Thank you that you are using them to love and serve these ladies who hope to come to Hong Kong. Thank you for providing jobs for the applicants, and a livelihood for their families.

Thank you Father that you include such weak ordinary people as us in your kingdom work. Thank you that you are working in our lives, our family, our ministry to bring about your own good purposes. Thank you that I can trust you to both will and work your good pleasure in my life. Thank you that you began a good work in us and that you won't stop working before it is complete. Thank you for your faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness.

Amen