By Adunke Olatunji
ENCOURAGERS actively listen with empathy. Meaningful encouragement is grounded in understanding, being able to accurately interpret what other people are saying. Great encouragers consistently seek to understand people. They are as comfortable with your fears and failures as they are with your hopes and dreams. When will someone encourage me?
I am an encourager. I love to encourage others. But I get weary, tired and burned out. And that’s when I internally scream. When is it my turn? Why doesn’t anyone encourage me? If I continue down that path of selfish thinking, things will quickly spiral out of control and I will lose focus of truth.
Draw your strength in Him
Edifying and building up the family of God is no small task. It takes immense determination and strength to offer inspiration time after time. To person after person. It requires a lot of energy.
And when we try to accomplish this task in our own strength, we will lose our focus and begin to think of ourselves. Instead, we must rely on God’s strength. Not only does He enable us to keep moving forward in our work of heartening others, but relying on him helps us keep our eyes focused where they need to be on Him.
Nowhere in Scripture does it say we can give up when we feel like we have nothing left to give. Not even once. And notice how that line of thinking is all self-centered. It is not God-centered. We have never had anything to offer. Only God has the Living Water that all desperately need to drink from. We are only the clay vessel in which to distribute the water…cracks and all.
What if Noah gave up building the ark because no one was encouraging him to keep going? Except for God. All those other voices were condemning him, mocking him. He never gave up. He couldn’t.
And Jesus. What if He gave up? I can’t even bear the thought of this. When He was carrying His cross down the Via Dolorosa, He stumbled and He was beyond exhausted. He could not carry His cross anymore. What if He just said, “I can’t do this anymore. I have nothing left to give. No more energy. I’m done.” And He totally could’ve. He could have dropped that wooden burden and went back to Heaven. But He didn’t. He kept going because the plan was too great for Him to stop.
I am building my life through the strength of the Lord.
Seek Him for Your Encouragement
Because encouraging others can be draining, we often long for others to come along and encourage us. However, I have found that hearing someone else’s encouragement is kind of empty. Unsatisfactory. It just doesn’t fill that need. And not because that person is not speaking the truth or because it’s not good enough.
But because I must seek Him for my encouragement.
He has given me this gift of encouragement to give to others not get from others. I must go to Him for refilling so that I can go out and fill others. When I do that, I am deeply encouraged. And because of that, human encouragement feels hollow. And it is hollow when compared to encouragement directly from God. We can be His voice to others in need, but our encouragement must come from Him.
Of course, this does not mean that we can never receive encouragement from others. There will be times when we are in a spiritual fog and we need God to use someone else to encourage us. But, for the most part, because of what God has brought us through and where He has placed us, we have been equipped to go out and encourage others.
Dear friends, we don’t have the luxury to give up on our calling. This world needs our encouragement! Our work is too great to stop. We must continue building. When we feel like we are running out of strength, we must turn our eyes to our Heavenly Father.
Encouragers demonstrate a real and loving concern for people. They are keenly aware of when changing conditions and circumstances ignite fear, break hearts and rob you of your passion. Rick Warren says, “The first job of leadership is to love people.” The condition of your heart is a measure of your willingness and capacity to encourage.
The responsibilities of leadership can indeed be draining. One feels burdened by the constant need to pull up, build up, shore up, and even dig up people who are sinking. We may feel that no one understands how much we give of ourselves and certainly no one cares!
My life has been so richly blessed by encouragers and their words of encouragement, and I bet yours has too!
When I am discouraged and have a desire to quit, or when I have lost purpose or perspective then God sends an encourager my way to remind me of His love and of the fruit He is producing even if I might feel the labor’s been in vain. They point out the “good”! As I write this the sweet smiles of several people God’s placed in my life stay framed in my mind, as I think of how many times I’ve felt stuck or disheartened and their words have propelled me forward.
Encourage one another and build each other up. Encourage the disheartened for iron sharpens iron. The one who is down today may be up tomorrow to help out in a big way. Do not be discouraged.
Adunke Olatunji, Managing Partner, Bamy-Rem Consulting