Devotional text: Isaiah 40:1-5 (CEV)

Our God has said: “Encourage my people! Give them comfort. Speak kindly to Jerusalem and announce: Your slavery is past; your punishment is over. I, the Lord, made you pay double for your sins.”Someone is shouting: “Clear a path in the desert! Make a straight road for the Lord our God. Fill in the valleys; flatten every hill and mountain. Level the rough and rugged ground. Then the glory of the Lord will appear for all to see. The Lord has promised this!”

Dear Friends

Encouraging someone who is discouraged is probably the most difficult thing do. People would rather run from such a person than to remain with them out of fear that they themselves could find themselves being easily discouraged as well. There is nobody else who can speak on this topic better than Isaiah, since he didn’t only have one person to encourage rather a whole nation who lost all their courage, being in a foreign country forced to worship a foreign god, because all that they have heard is that their God has abandoned them.

So how do you deal with a person who is discouraged? In helping a discouraged person, one always needs to keep him focused on the bigger plan sharing with him or her that God’s plan although it isn’t always a clear cut is still a reality and its better than what we could ever imagine.  For this to become a reality one needs to be reminded that your time of being enslaved by guilt and shame is over and that God has already conquered death and the vicious circles of life that keeps us entangled.  What such a person needs to hear is that he or she isn’t alone wandering through the desert by that there is someone who sticks with you and who is willing to walk with you through your wilderness experience. Someone that sticks to you even though you pushed the person away several times because you think that the person is wasting their time on you. As an encourager know that all these emotions will show itself and that only forms part of the cleansing process that result out of such a period. An encourager is someone who straightens your path, who irons out all the things that people may say about you. It is someone you know that you can hold on to with dear life when life causes you to tumble and fall. An encourager is someone who walks in faith and teaches you to become more merciful to yourself.

Isaiah through his encouraging message did exactly that. He taught the Israelites to be more merciful to themselves and not allowing the devil to continue to beat them up all over again. When we take the words of an encourager seriously, then we will soon realize that the position that we found ourselves in, will soon disintegrate allowing something new to grow, something far better than what we have anticipated.

When you become discouraged reach out and surround yourself with encouragers, allow people like Isaiah to speak into your hearts, for not only will it make a big difference in your life, but also in the life of the encourager, because by doing that you allow the one person to fulfil his or her God-ordained ministry and purpose for their lives.

Once I’ve been asked to conduct a devotional at a youth gathering by someone I viewed as an encourager. When she asked me to conduct a devotional it felt as if the heavens have opened up. Unknowingly, she fulfilled a dream that I had of ministering alongside her and making a difference in the lives of young people, even if it only met for a short period of time. This is sometimes enough to stand and walk the path that God has ordained for you.

Your encourager is out there ready to encourage you in times of trail. For them it means that they have the opportunity to live out their God ordained purpose and thus through stretching a hand out towards them, they realized that even they can make a difference in someone else’s life. Thank God for sending such a person to re-direct you on the path that God has for your life and know that together with such a person no mountain is too high to climb and no ocean is to deep to swim through for they will always keep you afloat.

Heavenly Father

Thank you for directing my encourager (name) to me in my times of great trails. Thank you for allowing and for giving my encourager the strength and patience to endure and stick to me through the hardest of times. Bless him or her and let them know through that blessing how many people’s lives they have blessed through one selfless act of random kindness. In Jesus’ name we pray.

Amen