We Need a Little Encouragement — Morning Devotions

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Transcript

There’s an old story about a preacher leaving a church at his farewell dinner. He tried to encourage one of his staunch pillar members. Someone who had been there from day one. Don’t be so sad, he said. The next preacher might be better than me. And she looked at him and said, Well, that’s what they said last time, but it keeps getting worse. Talk about encouragement.

Well, life can be challenging a lot of the time, and as we live our lives, we need some help.

And we face challenges. It’s important, I think, for us to have people in our lives that will get behind us to tell us what we can do. So what do people need when they’re struggling? I think the one word is encouragement. What do they need when they need to be challenged to do something perhaps that’s outside their normal range of ability? Again, encouragement.

And if you’ve got kids, when they make their first attempts at walking, what do you do? You, you don’t say, Come on, dummy, you should be walking by now. You’re 4 months old. No, you try to encourage them.

It was William Arthur Ward who said, Flatter me, and I may not believe believe you – but criticise me, I may not like you – Ignore me, and I may not forgive you, but encourage me, and I will not forget you.

So what can change the life of another person?

It is encouragement. Our lives are probably full of people who’ve taken the time to encourage us somewhere along the line, even if we haven’t always appreciated that at the time. It can be constructive criticism; it can be nice words. When we say we’re encouraging another person, is it when we yell at them or tell them that they’re not getting around to doing much in life? Is it being critical of everything? See others who need a bit of encouragement.

In fact, you wouldn’t have to look far because we all need it. The problem is we’re so self-centered that from the moment we wake up until the moment we hit our head on the pillow, we’re consumed with ourselves. We just think about our own sorrow and our needs, that we need affirmation, we need understanding. And we so easily forget that other people have needs as well.

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It’s really good to know that that word encourage means literally to come alongside of.

Come alongside someone

If we’re going to encourage them, we’ve got to come alongside and help them, and that word, an important part of encouraging another person is the willingness to step in and walk with them, walk beside them. In the Bible, we read too, we read one such man who did this. His name was Barnabas.

And his name means son of encouragement, and that you can have a look at Acts chapter 4 in the New Testament. He was a man, a God follower who loved to encourage other people. It seems it was his gift, and it could be that you’ve got that gift as well. So if you’re going to encourage others, maintain a positive attitude, you can encourage someone without pushing them past what they think they can do.

And people will achieve great heights if they know that you believe in them, because it is very easy to be critical, easy to be negative, and it was William Barclay who said one of the highest of human duties is the duty of encouragement. It’s easy to laugh at man’s ideals and pour cold water on the enthusiasm. It’s easy to discourage other people; of the world, he said, is full of discourages.

But Barclay says we’ve got a Christian duty to encourage one another. Maybe a time or a word of praise or thanks or cheer has kept a man on his feet. Blessed is the man who speaks such a word. Now I think that’s a terrific statement from William Barclay.

William Wordsworth once said that the best portion of a good man’s life is his little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and love.

History tells us the Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo was not an easy man. He was a great man, but he wasn’t an easy man to serve under. He was demanding. He didn’t actually give a lot of compliments away. But even he, the Duke of Wellington realised that his methods left something to be desired. Because in his old age a young lady said to him or asked him if there was anything he would do differently if he had his life all over, and he said, yes, I would have given more praise.

So when was the last time that you encouraged someone with your words or their actions? You know, we are most like Jesus when we can show compassion and love for others.

Let’s Pray

Thank you, Lord. We know these things are true. We do need encouragement, but Lord, more importantly, help us to encourage others. Amen.

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