There are many technologies for making connections with other people. Email. Mail. Text. Messenger. Phone. Post-it. Coffee cup.

There are many reasons for engaging with others. Challenge. Inform. Mock. Scold. Gossip. Warn. Rumormong. Worry. Encourage.

One writer says that your friends can be distracted into believing lies about their identity, about their value, about what can bring meaning. Your friends, the people that you have conversations with, the people you see, the people who pay attention to you, those people can be distracted. So can you.

Be distracted.

By lies.

So make the choice every day to use appropriate technology to personally give courage to the people who matter to you.

“You matter to God, you matter to me.” “You have everything you need in you to survive the next breath.” “I know what they are saying about you, but here’s what God’s saying about you. God’s talking to God about what your heart needs.”

A text. A private message. A post-it note. A note in the sacristy that you discover when you go to prepare the service. It’s not complicated. But it’s necessary.

But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. (Hebrews 3:14)

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I wrote this a couple years ago. It feels like a lifetime. It’s still true and helpful.