How Do You Encourage Others When You Need Encouraging Yourself?

It’s very easy to get all caught up in the worries of this life.  Life is full of disappointments, hurts, trials and tests.  I battle with feeling like a complete and utter failure at times.  It’s so easy to get discouraged and overwhelmed with the many responsibilities that come with being a wife, mom, friend, employee, etc.  How can this day be different?  How can I keep going?  How can I encourage or even minister to others when I need someone to minister to me sometimes?

In my state of brain fog from all of the temporary things that have seemed to cloud my mind, I begin to talk to the Lord.  Exhausted and overwhelmed, I turn to God’s Word because I realize that I am nothing and I need Him.  He speaks to my heart and reminds me that my situation is nothing compared to others and could be much worse.  He reminds me that this life is only temporary.  The things that I worry about are only temporary.   He reminds me of what I have already come through and how he promises that he will never leave or forsake me.…and He reminds me that my purpose – and the purpose of everyone born in this world – is to glorify Him and to evangelize the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So how do you encourage others when you need to encouraging yourself?  I found the answer to this question when studying about the life of David.  Read I Samuel 30: 1-6.  When David and his men came back into their city, they found that everything had been burned and all of the women had been taken captive which included his own two wives.  He and his men wept until they literally were too exhausted to weep anymore. Their life problems seemed unimaginable to them at the time.  But it was in verse six that David called out to God in his own distress and he encouraged himself in the LORD his God.

Christians are not exempt from life’s overwhelming problems but it’s through the trials and the tests that we are strengthened.  Those are the times that we have to encourage ourselves and still allow God to use us to be a blessing to others.  Jesus said in I Peter 5:7 that we are to cast our cares on him.  If we can simply grasp the fact that this life is only temporary and remember that we have a purpose of glorifying Him and evangelizing the message of salvation, then we can look at things from a whole new perspective.  Then we can make a choice to be a blessing and minister to others no matter how bad our own situation looks.

This week if life’s burdens begin to overwhelm you, begin to ENCOURAGE YOURSELF by spending time alone with God. Choose to minister to those around you regardless of how you feel and be a blessing and encourage others!