Encourage Yourself in the Lord

We all need encouragement from time to time when the journey of life seems just too trying. Sometimes we will find the hope we need when the Lord sends another along our path to speak words of life to us. But many times God is waiting to see if we will take advantage of all that he has given us, to encourage ourselves!

Some days I get up excited about the day before me. I’m feeling happy, inspired and full of the life of God. As I get busy with the chores of that day, things just seem to have an easy flow and I feel in step with the Holy Spirit. My kids seem so smart and cute. My comfortable condo a joy to clean. But what about those other days?

As you step out of bed in the morning you can feel the coat of depression being slipped on. It’s a perfect fit and you’ll wear it all day - maybe even the next if you don’t resist it! As you make your husband oatmeal you spill the oats all over your kitchen (that actually happened to me this morning). Your kids seem loud and needy. The thought of cleaning this house one more time makes you edgy. Depressing feelings and thoughts swirl around you like a mini tornado.

I’ve been having some of those other days lately. Recently I suffered a disappointment that really affected me in a negative way. Things that I had been planning on didn’t work out the way I had been praying for. I felt tempted with major feelings of failure and stupidity. So, at the point of my disappointment my choice is to have a pity party or begin to encourage myself in the Lord.

A perfect example of this is given in Psalm 42:5

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

The Psalmist doesn’t say that someone else came along and told him to be of good cheer and put his hope in God – he told himself to put his hope in God. After acknowledging the fact that he is indeed depressed, he then commands his soul to line up with Gods word, telling himself to cheer up because there is hope in God!

While it’s true that there will be times in life where we are genuinely downcast and disturbed, there may not always be someone around to speak life-giving words to us and encourage us. At that point it’s up to us to speak to our own souls (our mind, will and emotions). Our words are more important then we realize. The Bible says that life and death are in the power of the tongue (prov. 18:21). So when we are dealing with a spirit of heaviness or we feel like a black cloud is over our heads, we need to encourage ourselves with the word of God.

Now I realize that much of our strength and encouragement will come from belonging to a local church. As we listen to the sermon on Sunday or meet with our Christian brothers and sisters, we can partake of much edification. But we aren’t at church everyday. Church is meant to facilitate our Christian walk with God not take the place of our Christian walk with God.

So lets get into the word of God and find our encouragement there. As we find verses in the Bible that really speak to us we can say those scriptures out loud and we’ll be speaking the truth over our lives. Many times I will put on a worship CD and worship with all of my heart and in that way I’ll be singing the truth over my life. We can cry out to God in prayer and stir up our faith, thereby remembering who we are in Christ and that he lives on the inside of us!!

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Paula Friedrichsen is a conference speaker and the author of "The Man You Always Wanted is The One You Already Have" (Multnomah 2007). She lives with her husband and daughter in Northern California.
© 2008 Paula Friedrichsen - All rights reserved.
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