To Encourage You

Colossians 2:1-2 “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged . . . “

Does anything have you discouraged at the moment?  Does anything have you down?  Maybe it’s a health issue in your own body or in the body of someone you love.  Perhaps it’s an emotional struggle: anxiety, fear, depression, something like that.  Maybe you’ve failed at something – and you have regrets about it that you just can’t shake.  Or perhaps financial issues are weighing you down. 

Surely, we live in a fallen world, and we are all fallen creatures.  In the discouraging, yet true words of Job’s friend Eliphaz which he spoke to Job in his crushing suffering, “man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7).  It is in the face of this reality that Paul tells the church in the verses above that he was suffering and struggling himself, in part, so that they would be encouraged.  It would seem that if anyone needed encouragement it was Paul, for he was writing these words from prison.  Perhaps you’ve experienced a situation in which you’ve visited someone in the hospital in the hope of lifting their spirits, but you’ve come away with your own spirit being lifted as you’ve witnessed the way the other person had endured. 

Some time ago, our son Adam spent some time at a Christian camp for the disabled.  Each one of the campers had a counselor, people who had selflessly given of their time to encourage and help those with special needs.  Yet, what I found was that it was often the counselors who expressed how much they had gained by being with the campers. It was their hearts that were encouraged, perhaps more than anyone else.  On Tuesday night the camp held a “talent night” for the campers. Our son Adam sang the song “How Great Thou Art.”  It was as heartfelt and sincere as I’ve heard from anyone who ever sang this song. Here my son, with the intellectual and physical disabilities that come along with his condition of Down Syndrome, praised his Savior in gratitude for His mighty works in creation and salvation that this hymn speaks about.  As Adam sang the last verse I listened a little more closely than I might have if someone else, perhaps a well-known musician, had been singing. You see, the last verse says this: “When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation, and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.  Then I shall bow in humble adoration, and then proclaim, ’My God, how great Thou art.’ In my mind’s eye I could picture Adam at that glorious future moment (and it’s surely coming) praising and thanking his Savior with the voice of the angels and a perfectly healthy body like that of his wonderful Savior.  What joy and encouragement filled my heart at that moment, encouraged by the words and example of my loving son. 

You see, only Christ can affect a life in that way.  What great encouragement that any Christian, though he or she be “one of the least of these,” can bring to others because of the work of Christ in a life and the hope we have because of it.  Joy in the face of struggles, peace in the midst of a storm, selfless love in the face of a selfish world – those are the things only Christ can bring.  May you be encouraged by this wonderful truth.