Hey everyone! So... for those of you who read my last post.... The "Let's Blog Everyday!" commitment fell through. Soooo. I'm thinking I'll start out on a once a week basis. I'm going to attempt to blog every Monday night. So, now to get to the point of this blog..
Recently in my life, I've been feeling slightly discouraged. For those of you who know me, you might describe me as bubbly or energetic. Well you haven't been around me recently. Here in these past few months I've been quite negative. I took a trip to North Carolina with my mom, Aunt, and Cousin. I had to miss the first youth group of 2013. I had to miss youth group in general! Bummed does not even begin to describe my feelings about that. So I spent almost the entire night very very very grumpy. I decided to read 1 Timothy 4, which is where our youth group band was studying. I figured just because I wasn't there, didn't mean I should get off without reading it. I opened up the massive book and started reading. Verse 2 says: "Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke and encourage your people with good teaching." This is when it dawned upon me, that I'm not the most encouraging person... That totally discouraged me. So I started praying about it. I asked God to not only help me be more encouraging, but to provide me with encouragement throughout my week. And I totally just realized how much he has.
1). He's provided me with the opportunity to use the talents He's given me to share the gospel. I mean how awesome is that?! 2). He's given me a best friend to provide daily encouragement, and to help me in my life. We won't even get into how thankful I am for him. 3). He's done random things throughout my day that have made me smile. 4). This is something that I can only describe as a God thing. For Christmas, I received a phone docker with a clock radio built in (it's so awesome!). My iternet radio wasn't working for whatever reason, so I decided to listen to the radio. I flipped on the radio switch and it turned on to where I have it set: K-Love. Whatever song they were playing ended, and the DJ's came on. They started talking about this 30 day challenge they were doing. The challenge is to listen to nothing but christian music for 30 days and see how God speaks in your life. I remember one of the DJ's saying "And see the different ways God encourages you during that time." I perked up. SO. I've decided to take the challenge.
Being encouraging is a difficult thing to do, when there's so many discouraging things going on. Being encouraging is hard in this world. It's being the light in a dark room. It's standing out. The word encourage has the word courage in it. It takes courage to be encouraging. The word encouraging means to inspire with courage, spirit, or confidence. We as Christians are called to encourage not only the lost, but our fellow believers. So lets go shine our lights! Lets be encouraging!
-MJR
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