ENCOURAGING ONE ANOTHER

Tom Wacaster tells the story of a group of elementary students who were involved in a field day at school. They were participating in various sports in competition. The event at hand was chinning or “pullups”. The first boy strolled to the bars with a smirk on his face thinking that he could out do all the other boys. He confidentially grabbed the bar and began pulling himself up smiling as he chinned himself for the tenth time. His opponent, Kenneth, came with less certainty. When he had chinned the eighth time, he thought he was beaten. With much pain, he managed to slowly drag his chin over the bar for the ninth time. And with a child’s sense of tragedy, he thought there was no way he could tie the first boy, but from somewhere down in the depths of his soul, he managed to pull himself up one more time to tie his opponent. As pain racked his entire body, he lowered himself to quit.

Then a little girl from the crowd, an admirer, perhaps his favorite friend, said with tears flowing down her face and with an urgent throbbing voice above all the shouts of the other children, “One more time, Kenneth!” Her voice was like an electric shock across his face. From somewhere deep within his being there was a call as old as humanity. Reserves of strength poured through his body. And with the determined frown of a grown man he dragged himself up for the final and winning pull-up and then collapsed happily on the ground.

A simple word of encouragement may very well make the difference between defeat and victory, between failure and success. There is a message in this story for every Christian and every parent. In a world where Christians are constantly struggling to maintain a Spirit filled life, encouragement is vital. The same can be said about our children who are facing a constant barrage of temptation, maybe just one word is sufficient to keep their focus on growing in Christ.

Someone has said, “We live by encouragement, and we die without it – slowly sadly, and angrily.” God’s Word says it better, “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” (Hebrews 3:13)

By Bill Hopkins