How To be Encouraged

To be encouraged is to be filled with inner hope. And hope is life. People and animals will kill themselves if they find no hope in or around them. I tell you that hope is just the self knowledge that the end of a situation is going to be good, or at least better than the present reality.

Do you know anyone who does not want to be hopeful?

Do you know anyone who does not want to be encouraged?

I believe it is safe to say that the minor and major problems we face as individuals, as families, as villages, as towns, as cities, as constituencies, as parishes, as states, as countries, as nations and as a planet have to do with lack of hope within one or both parties in the conflict.

I dedicate this blog to truths from my life and experiences. I am sharing with you a method of encouragement that has worked for me and I will put my life on the line that it will work for you as well.

I am a product of faith and divine selection and it is from my Saviour, Jesus Christ, my method of encouragement comes. Now, don’t be too eager to close the browser because you read the name of Jesus. After all, won’t you agree that anyone who is mature and independent will not be scared or frightened away by a simple name?

Thanks for being a real person who is not afraid to learn something.

A simple father had his daughter sick and dying. He asked Jesus to come and help. All his other “hopes” had failed. A drowning man will snatch at a straw in a bid to save his life. People often do not take Jesus seriously until they know for a fact that nothing or no one else can help.

And Jesus does not mind that at all. In fact, God will have it no other way. God begins and takes over when human beings end and give up.

As the loving daddy who asked Jesus to come help his very sick daughter get better started back home with Jesus, guess what happened? A message came from home that the daughter had died.

Daddy was overcome with grief and lost all hope. But then Jesus told him,”Don’t be afraid. Just believe.”

Follow me here. Whenever hope is lost or dying, it automatically calls on its tag team partner of fear to occupy the heart.

If you are seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling or experiencing news that is killing your hope, then I say to you to continue to believe. Do not be afraid.

Someone once said that FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real

I have come to find out that feeling afraid DOES NOT change the circumstances. In fact, when you allow yourself to be afraid all you are doing is paralyzing your will and sending up your blood pressure by worrying.

Listen, if fear does not change the conditions that make you afraid then might as well you use the same energy it takes to be afraid and use that energy to believe…to keep hope alive in your heart—for your own peace of mind and wellbeing.

The second lesson on the road to your own encouragement is in the next action of Jesus.

After He told daddy not to be afraid, He stopped all the people who were following just to be observers and have something to talk about. Jesus continued to the house where the dead girl now was with only three persons, apart from daddy.

Hear this. If you are serious about getting to new, unchartered, virgin experiences and levels of happiness that you have not before experienced, then you have to allow for some measure of loneliness and unpopular trails.

Imagine the guts it took for daddy to stay walking with Jesus when everyone else there was saying Jesus has to be crazy. Who ever heard of somebody helping a DEAD person?

Do you have what it takes to walk the road less travelled in order to receive the encouragement and success that no one else enjoys?

But there is another lesson in our story. When daddy arrived back at the house he saw all his neighbours and friends comforting his wife and crying as well.

Daddy then heard Jesus saying something that didn’t make sense. Jesus was telling them, “The girl is not dead.”

The folks who were there and had already seen the girl, knew she was dead. So how did they respond to what Jesus, who had just physically arrived, said?

The people LAUGHED JESUS TO SCORN. Yes, that is right. No one there thought anything sensible of Jesus. Daddy had a choice to make. He was seeing all his friends and family laughing at Jesus as though Jesus was the most stupid person on the planet. Daddy knew to stand with Jesus meant that his friends will also laugh him to scorn.

But he wanted to give Jesus a chance to do His do. After all, what more could he lose at this time?

Our next lesson is from Jesus’ next action. He put everybody who was laughing out of the house.

You must understand, as you get close to your place of miracle, to your ground zero, to your ashes from where the phoenix is about to rise, that no ordinary human being can stand in support of you there.

To see hope when the average person sees hopelessness is not going to put you on the popular list. It is not going to send you viral and increase your “likes” or followers on social networks.

just the opposite might happen. Your number of friends may suddenly dwindle.

And it was at this time when daddy was really alone Jesus did for him what no one else could have done. Because daddy was man enough to stand with Jesus and allow Jesus a chance to help, his daughter was brought back to life.

I want to say, finally, that no body can stop you from believing what you choose to believe. But no body can stop Jesus from doing what He does when a person believes and waits on Him.

People spend hundreds of dollars to hear motivational speeches. But you know what? All the feel good advice you will ever need is in the Bible. Read Mark chapter 5 to see what I am talking about.

Be encouraged!