Encouragement. Before the race I thought of it as saying something nice to someone. “That’s a cute shirt.” “I love those shoes!” “You’ve lost weight.” All these statements brightened my day. Although all of these things are nice, they are not the greatest example of encouragement. At this point in the race I feel like my definition of encouragement has been changed completely.
While living in community, encouragement comes in many forms. I’m encouraged by my team to keep going on days that I’d rather just stay in bed. They keep me focused on bringing glory to God with every breath I take. I’ve been encouraged to step into freedom from things that have held me back for a long time. This encouragement comes from a group of people that want to see me walk as closely with the Lord as I possibly can. I’ve been able to see things in myself that I’ve never seen because my teammates are willing to encourage. I understood this kind of encouragement pretty early on.
In Thailand God revealed a new facet of encouragement to me. As we visited villages all over Ubon Province I was humbled by the faith and perseverance of the believers we came in contact with. In each village we met families that were the only Christians in their entire village. They are people that are living for the Lord without the support of other believers. On a daily basis they have to rely on the Lord to sustain them. They have to look to God to get them through everything.
When we showed up to these villages I was originally focused on handing bibles to people who had never seen the Word of God. It was an awesome experience. But what God really began to reveal to me was the smiles of the believers I was serving with. In each village we were overwhelmed with thanks from the believers who were grateful for the foreigners who were willing to come worship and pray with them. We more than doubled their congregation. I may have come to share the gospel originally, but God had another idea. We came and got to encourage believers.
I couldn’t believe that I had never thought about such an important aspect of the Christian life. If you look at Paul’s letters in the Bible they are to the believers in cities that were spread all over the known world at the time. He didn’t write the letters to share the gospel with people in those cities. He wrote the letters to encourage the believers that lived in those cities. He not only gave them positive encouragement to keep fighting for their faith; He sometimes encouraged them to turn back to the God they were supposed to be worshipping. It wasn’t always fluffy encouragement, but it was encouragement none the less.
So, as we came to each village, I began to focus more on encouraging the believers in those villages. After all, they are the ones that will be there when I’m long gone. They are the ones who can speak truth into the lives of the people around them. If I can pour encouragement into those believers for a month, then my effort goes much farther than trying to win souls for Christ. To encourage believers is to spread the gospel far more. I got to invest in the lives of people who will spread the gospel on a continual basis.
Their smiles said it all. We brought them hope that they’re not alone. We brought renewed energy to carry the gospel into the shadow of buddhist temples. And we got to see the Lord moving as we walked together bound by the same spirit. I was and am blessed to have served with such amazing believers. Those beautiful people who fight to believe on a daily basis.
They taught me what encouragement is really for. We need it in order to build up the body as we continually die to ourselves. True encouragement causes you to step outside of yourself and look at the God in the people around you. Living in an encouraging state of mind means that I’m not thinking about myself all the time. To encourage means to give support, confidence, or hope to someone. I would challenge you to take that and infuse it into every aspect of your life and see what happens.
