Day 20 - Part 3 Encouragement Encourage Yourself

If you can find no one to encourage you, encourage yourself.

It is so hard when we lay out a three course meal for others and they eat it and walk away without saying anything, let alone a thank you. But be reassured that your fare will have fed them in some way. Although it might feel like you’ve thrown a pebble into a pond which then seems to have disappeared below the surface of the water, there will be ripples from that act. Sadly, we often don’t see those ripples, but must know that no word God gives us ever returns void.

We can choose to become discouraged and disheartened by the lack of fish we catch on this side of the boat, the praise and encouragement of the world. Or we can choose to cast our nets on the other side of the boat, into heavens kingdom. Here, you will always catch full nets of encouragement and direction and joy from God, for he truly delights in all his children and is the greatest encourager you will ever find.

Every parent, when their child takes their first steps, feels excitement and anticipation. They don’t say, “What a shame they are not on the west end stage dancing”. That would be an unkind and cruel thing to even think, as it’s totally unrealistic. Instead, the excitement is about knowing that this first step is a breakthrough moment into a fuller life than when they were crawling. They don’t discourage them from walking because they might fall over a few times and get hurt. They know that once they’ve overcome those first few tentative steps, they will be able to walk and then run and skip and dance and discover endless possibilities that they never could have without the bravery of taking those first few steps.

God sees us that way. We want to see ourselves dancing at the London Palladium, but he laughs because we don’t yet realise that in order to do that, we still have a very long journey ahead of us. Yet he delights in every small step and breakthrough we make and he wants us to delight too in who we are becoming, rather than beating ourselves up for not being better or getting there quicker.

He is an encouraging Father, who always has the time to encourage us, if we but just go and spend time with him. The first thing he tells us is to stop throwing our nets on the side of the boat hoping for the encouragement of the world, for there are very few fish to be found there and maybe only seaweed. Instead he asks us to lift our nets and trust that when we cast them into heaven, we will get more than we could ever believe possible or desire.

He would also say, when no others are encouraging you, encourage yourself. Know that every act of love or kindness or thoughtfulness is like a breath of air into his heavenly balloon, helping it to expand. And every time it gets a tiny little bit bigger, heaven celebrates, even if not one other soul sees all you do in private or hidden from the sight of others.

So encourage yourself, that even if not one person encourages you, your heavenly Father is celebrating every breath you are breathing into his balloon of life.

Where do you look to for encouragement? To the world or to heaven?

What have you been encouraged in by friends?

What does God encourage you in, either now or in the past? How did that affect you and what were the results?

How do you encourage yourself when no one is encouraging you? How can you do more of this?