Thoughts on Encouragement

I don't know a lot. Shocking I know, but I'm not nearly as wise as I wish I was. But there is one trick I've learned in my life that's never led me astray, and that is to encourage people with abandon. If you need encouragement right now, don't wait around on someone to bring it your way, send it out to others instead.

Granted, this principal doesn't work for everything. If you need a car, I doubt you'll be able to give one to someone else (but you can still, however, be generous to random people). This tends to qualify more for the intangible things. I know that I've had times in my life where I've been down and really wished someone would go out of their way to randomly encourage me or just let me know that they're thinking about me to let me know that I matter and then I get even more down when no one does.

So I finally figured out that rather than sitting around waiting for someone to come along and help me, I could just go ahead and give to others exactly what I wanted myself. Instead of waiting for someone to encourage me, I can just go out of my way to encourage someone else. So whenever you're down, take the focus off of yourself and try to lift up someone else. I guarantee that you're not the only one needing it in that moment.

Discouragement and depression are not of the Lord. They are often weapons that are used against us, so whenever we take the focus from ourselves and lift up others, it's like using the enemy's weapon against him.