We All Need Encouragement

I wrote earlier today about the power of encouraging words, how some words from Barnabas enabled Saul to fulfill The Lord's call to ministry.

We all need to hear encouraging words in order to receive the confidence and ability to make it through this life. Yet if we do not belong to a community we will not receive the encouragement needed. And, in a world filled with depression and loneliness, encouragement and community seem to be our highest need and desire.

It seems to be a vicious cycle. People are depressed and so they withdraw from community - the community of church, the community of family, the community of friends, and the community of love and fellowship. As they withdraw from community they receive less and less encouragement and they grow more depressed.

THIS IS NOT GOD'S PLAN! The only solution is to get into a community again - maybe even by force.

See, all of us - at one point or another - feel as though we are alone and we need encouragement, love, and support. And it is at these moments that we are overwhelmed with feelings of rejection - perhaps even that we are an outsider.

It is at these very moments - as we wonder why no one cares or why no one calls - that we need to consider others. It is at these very moments that we need to pick up the phone, pick up a pen, or pick up the keys, and pour some needed love and encouragement into the life of another person.