More on encouragement

We've all been getting some encouragement recently.  On Saturday, as well as having the most social engagements I've had in a single day since, well, ever, I had two very encouraging encounters.


The first was a "Blokes Brekkie" at church.  Everything you'd expect: lots of protein, fresh coffee, good times.  It wasn't a big deal, I think it was only announced 4 or 5 days ahead, but we still had over a dozen men of various ages there.  And the encouragement?  Andrew reminded us that one of the disciplines of a godly man is to maintain friendships with other men, that it's something worth working at.  There's talk of more of these brekkies in the future.  We had a crash course in making real coffee this time, and afterwards were kicking around ideas for other "show and tells" - like getting one of the guys to give an intro on graphic design.  I think it'll be a while before I'm asked to talk on Maxwell's equations...


The second was spending a couple of hours at a coffee shop down the road catching up with a good friend of mine.  Although we live in different cities now and we've both got young families, it was a perfect example of that sort of relationship where even if you haven't seen each other for 12 months, you can sit down and pick up where you left off like it was only yesterday.  Great stuff.