A HALLMARK QUOTE -- Devotional for March 4, from "Good Seeds"

For I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother. (Philemon 7)

I don’t remember who wrote it, or the particular circumstances, but a thank-you note I received many years ago still sticks in my memory and clings to my heart. Why? Only because of a beautiful phrase it contained. It was not a singsong greeting card verse, nor was it a tried and true – and tired – cliché, written in the all too familiar language of “Christianese.” And it wasn’t especially clever or creative or cute. Rather, it was a quote from an obscure book crammed way in the back of the New Testament, a book too small for chapter divisions. It is the shortest, but most personal, of Paul’s letters, written to his friend, Philemon. It recounts the story of this man’s runaway slave, Onesimus, whose flight from bondage brought him to Paul’s prison cell. There was no hope for it, but that this young rebel would meet the Lord Jesus through the benevolence and witness of the aged evangelist. Think of the most useless, reckless, rebellious, obnoxious young man you’ve ever met, and you’ve pegged Onesimus! We don’t know the circumstances of his conversion. Only the consequences. As Paul preached Christ, forgiveness reached his heart, and another prodigal son came to his senses and fled forthwith to his Father – the one in heaven and one on earth as well. Paul wrote to the Corinthians about this relationship with those he had brought to the Lord: “You may have many spiritual teachers and tutors, but you have only one spiritual father – me – the one who begat you in Jesus” (I Cor. 4:15 SM). And yet there was another father still to be reckoned with – Philemon. So Paul sends Onesimus, bearing this letter, back to his master. Paul is not buttering Philemon up with saccharin smooth talk, nor is he manipulating or pressuring him with human tactics, or pulling rank on him with reminders of his apostolic authority. Rather, in the spirit of Christ’s teaching on forgiveness, he appeals to his friend: “Wait till you see the changes in our young man. He fled from you an inept, uncooperative slave; he returns a humble brother in Christ.” It is in this context that this “Hallmark” quote came about. Say, why don’t you try it: next time you send a note, copy this quote. If you mean it, it will mean everything to your friend, and maybe it will soften his heart and redirect his thinking. Kind words have that effect. And this is God’s Word, after all, going out with the guarantee that it “will not return void, without accomplishing that for which it was sent” (Isaiah 55:11 SM).