A little while ago, I was feeling down. A lot had been going on with my family and in my personal life. I came across this article by Jeff Doles titled "How to Encourage Yourself in the LORD." It is an amazing article and I encourage you to read it. I want to take some excerpts from this article:
"David and his band of soldiers had just returned home to Ziklag, only to find that it had been burned with fire, and their wives and children carried off by the Amalekites. “Discouraged” is not a big enough word to describe the state of their morale. The Bible says they wept bitter tears until they simply had no more power to weep..."
"...So David chose encouragement, not only to be encouraged—for there was no one around him who could, or would, do that for him—but to encourage himself. The most important thing to notice here, though, is that David did not encourage himself in himself. Rather, the Scripture says that he encouraged himself in the LORD his God."
GOD WANTS YOU TO BE ENCOURAGED and He has given you the means by which you can encourage yourself in Him.
1. Recognize that you do not have to stay discouraged. It may be like a bird that flies over your head, but you do not have to let it nest in your hair. You can be encouraged, and in fact, you can encourage yourself.
2. Remember that, if you know the Lord Jesus Christ, you are in covenant with God, and He has committed Himself to take care of you in every situation. When the circumstances of life pressed in on David, David pressed in on the benefits of his covenant relationship with God. (Psalm 103:2-5).
3. Stop giving voice to your discouragement and start giving voice to your encouragement…Find out what the Word of God has to say about your situation, then start speaking it, rather than your feelings.
4. Meditate on the Lord. One of the Hebrew words for “meditate” literally means to murmur, and implies the moving of the lips. Another word means to converse with yourself. It is your “self-talk,” the way you speak to yourself about the things in your life. Everybody meditates on something, but often it is on the wrong thing, on the wrong person, or with the wrong focus.
5. Get in the presence of the Lord. “Give thanks to the Lord. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise” (Psalm 104.4). This requires a quality decision: I will give thanks. I will praise. Nehemiah said, “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8.10). David said to the Lord, “In Your presence is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16.11). When we get into the presence of the Lord we will find all the strength we need and encouragement for every circumstance.
6. Stand in the armor of God. Paul said, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” You can find a description of this in Ephesians 6.11-18
Sometimes it is so easy for us to get so caught up in our own situation that we can’t see the big picture. As I look through God’s Word, I am definitely encouraged by all of the promises He has made to His people: that He is not a man that He should lie, that He gives good gifts to His children, that he has plans to prosper us and give us life more abundantly, etc. When I look at my life I can truly say that God has been keeping me and blessing me. And when I look at the bigger picture, and my BIGGER God, it doesn’t seem so bad anymore.
I pray that you will feel encouraged by this article and that no matter what your situation is, no matter what the day brings, you will have the peace and joy of the Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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