What Your Encouragement to Others Says About You:

Hebrews 3:13
So encourage each other daily...so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 


My cousin Jennifer is one of the most encouraging people I know.  For the past year I have been observing her bless and encourage the people around her with phone calls, text messages, emails, and so much more.  It seems so natural for her, as though she doesn't even have to think about it.   No matter what has been going on in my life the past couple years, she's always reached out to say a simple hello and let me know she is thinking or praying for me....even during times when I wasn't always reaching out to her. 

I'm challenged by this kind of encouragement in the body of Christ.  It's a kind of encouragement that embodies the love of Jesus.  It's a kind of encouragement that reaches beyond self and into the lives of others.  It's a kind of encouragement that exudes confidence, grace, and sincere compassion.   

I want to be a person that encourages those around me, because according to scripture, people who can't seem to encourage others are some of the most hardened people on earth.  In Hebrews we are reminded to encourage each other daily..."so as not to be hardened by sin's deceit." 

When encouragement is difficult in your life, you must really ask yourself why.  Because 100 times out of 100, the difficulty to encourage has nothing to do with the people around you- and everything to do with your heart.  When we fail to encourage those around us, our hearts become insecure, covetous, isolated, and weak.  Like the Grinch, our hearts become three sizes too small.  Our lack of encouragement is always a symptom of something more.  Something deep inside of us that is not as it should be. 

You see, the greatest deceit we can experience is by believing this world is all about us.  The hardest our hearts will get, is when we believe that we are to be recipients of encouragement rather than distributors of encouragement.  When we focus inward, we will find our hearts cold, hardened, and alone.  We will find ourselves trapped in our own sin of selfishness and despair. 

I want to practice encouraging others in every aspect of my life.  I want to work on being called outside of myself, focusing on the lives of people around me.  I'm doing my best to practice this within my core group of friends, but I want it to become so much a part of my life that it is felt by everyone I come into contact with.   I want the confidence of Jesus and the value I have in Him to be my foundation, so that I am freed to give encouragement to others without the motive to receive it in return. 

I want to encourage others daily, so that my heart is soft and secure...and freed to love like Jesus loved.

"Student says- 'I am very discouraged what should I do'. Master says- 'encourage others'"

You're So Vain, bet You think This Post Is About You....

Philippians 2:3
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.


In Greek mythology, Narcissus was hunter, known for his beauty.  Filled with pride, he loved himself so much that he was unable to love others.  Eventually, he was led to a body of water, where he glanced his reflection- unbeknownst to him- and fell in love with himself.  He was unable to leave the beauty of his very own reflection. 

And there he would spend the rest of his days, alone with himself...until the day that he died... 

As hard as it is to admit, there's a little bit of narcissus in all of us, isn't there?  A part of us that is afraid to take our eyes off of ourselves.  A voice inside of us that lures us in, keeping us fixated on self, preventing us from focusing on others.  Sometimes this voice comes with the sound of praise- reminding you of your accomplishments, stroking your ego, and giving you glory for all that you have done and all that you are.  Other times, this inability to take our eyes off of ourselves comes in a discouraging way.  Causing you to obsesses over yourself...if only I could have done better.  If only I could do more, be more, have more...

No matter which voice, whether positive or negative, we become the center of our attention. 

When we are consumed with ourselves, we are inhibited from loving others the way we were intended to love them.  When we are the focus we miss the opportunity of connecting with others. 

Pride and selfishness are some of the most isolating characteristics a human can possess....and whether the focus is positive or negative...fixation on self is just that.   

For those of us who cannot stop looking at ourselves...we will find, like Narcissus, a life filled nothing but self.  We will find everyone else around us fading away, washed up in the waves of our selfishness.  Consumed by the appetite of our ego.  And ultimately...desperately, and utterly alone.

C.S. Lewis declares that humility is not thinking less of yourself, but learning to think of your self less....

To allow your focus to fall on the people around you, and the God inside of you.  The God that is calling your name, asking you to love Him because He has already loved you.

The ironic thing is that the God who loves us so much is the only One who has the authority to focus on Himself...but He chose, in fact, to focus on You instead.  To give His heart to you.  To give His life for you.  To think of you in His last dying moment...instead of thinking of Himself. 

The only way to be freed from the snares of ego and pride is to do just that.  The only way to unlock the prison of selfishness and be freed from the obsession of insecurity, is to fix your eyes on others.  To allow others to be loved and valued just as much as you love and value yourself. 

Because no matter how hard we try to save ourselves... turning our eyes away from this self is the one and only place where true salvation can be found.   

All This Talk About Faith is Making My Life a Little Crazy...

1 Peter 1:7
These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

The one thing about choosing to blog about your spiritual life is that it forces you to face any kind of hypocrisy you might have going on.  I mean, I can't write a blog about loving my husband and than turn around and disrespect him.  I can't write about what I am learning about encouragement and in the same breath gossip about a friend or give a bad attitude to the slow cashier at WalMart.


There is something about sharing your spiritual journey with others that keeps you accountable.  I usually love and appreciate that accountability.  But this morning, I hated it...because I almost freaked out...

I got a call this morning that the transferring of my license to work as a professional counselor (from IL to PA) which I had anxiously been awaiting had fallen through.  In short this means no work for at least another 2 months.  At least.  The process had already been delayed a month past what I had planned on...and now it's being delayed indefinitely.  In addition to this, I am left with about 90 phone calls to make and 35 letters to send out (okay, not that many, but it sure feels like it).

I immediately went to my husband to whine and complain and vent my frustrations.  What a waste of my time this had all been.  What a slow department and what a complicated process.  What an annoying state we chose to move to...how dare they.  What about the money we were planning on me earning during this time?

Typically, I probably would have spent the next couple days just pouting my shattered plans desperately trying to figure out how to put the pieces together.  But, miraculously- it lasted only about 5 minutes.


I say miraculously because all this talk about faith is changing some things in me.  All this talk about faith is allowing me to take these moments to really put my faith under a microscope and analyze how I handle these situations of pressure and failure.  In all reality, all this talk about faith is making my life a little crazy - because it's forcing me to new levels of faith and belief that I have never really been to before. 


I called my grandma for a pep talk, and she reminded me about lessons of faith even in these little things.  It's a never ending lesson, really.  Just because I had faith last week doesn't mean I will naturally have it today.  I have to work it out.  I have to refine it and prove it genuine.

Just like Paul was saying to the church- these things happen because God wants to prove your faith- not just to Himself, but to you.  Faith, he says, that is of greater worth than gold.  Faith that at the end of the day, when done the right way will result in nothing less than praising God and drawing nearer to Him.  That's my kind of ending to the day.  I'd rather have that than my pouting and whining any day.

So, here we go- in front of all you readers and friends.  I'm choosing to trust God with this dilemma.  I am choosing to wait on Him, trusting that He must have this under control.  I am choosing to take this "opportunity of unemployment" to give God my time and to give others my time.  To encourage, to minister, and to speak into the lives of those around me.  I know this will work out in His exact timing, and until it does I'm going to seek to praise Him with my life and my attitude...even with the darn licensing lady on the phone:)


Hold me to that.  And then ask yourself- how is God proving your faith right now?