God Made Me ______ - R

When I was younger, I dreamed of being an athlete. Ripping that game-winning home run. Miraculously catching the touchdown pass in double overtime. Getting a quadruple jump and smugly telling my opponent to "king me."

Then I realized being an athlete is hard and I started playing video games where I can do all those things.

There's something about athletes that just makes us sit in awe of what they can do. In my opinion, one of the most incredible athletes of all time has to be Eric Liddell, and there are many reasons for that. You may not immediately recognize the name, but most people have heard at least some of his story. Liddell is the focus of the movie Chariots of Fire if you've ever seen that. If you haven't, I guarantee you've heard the music from it.

Liddell was a runner, and he had an absolutely amazing career. While attending the University of Edinburgh, he quickly became known as the fastest runner in Scotland. He ran in the 100- and 220-yard races for his school. He went on to win a bronze and a gold medal in the 1924 Paris Olympics before moving to China and becoming a missionary.

The truly amazing part of his career to me, as some of you may remember, is that Liddell completely refused to compete on Sundays as a way to dedicate his life to God. This sounds all fine and well, but it actually almost cost him one of those medals that he won. Liddell was highly favored to win the 100-meter dash going into the Olympics, but the schedule that was released months before revealed that the qualifying heat for this race was going to be held on a Sunday. Coaches and teammates encouraged him to break his rule just this once. They argued that winning this race on an international scale would still bring God glory through his ability.

Liddell refused.

Not content to just sit out, however, he began training for the 400-meter race instead. Though still an incredible athlete, even his best times in this race were modest at best by Olympic standards. He had only a few short months to train (all the while, never running on Sundays). In the end, he won the gold, setting an Olympic record that would stand for 12 years.

This kind of drive and work ethic is almost incomprehensible to me, especially because it involves running, which has been scientifically proven to be the worst. But this all stemmed from the sheer joy and passion with which he ran. In a later interview, Liddell said "God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure."

What a weirdo.

There is zero part of me that feels anything remotely close to pleasure when I run, but I think there's an important lesson to be learned from Liddell.

One of the most amazing parts of being a Christian is receiving the transforming work of Christ. In him, we are made into something completely new. But in a sense, we are also made into what we were always meant to become. God had an idea of what he wanted us to be, that we naturally fell short of, which is part of being a human being. But God never scrapped that plan to start from scratch, and he never settled for what we made ourselves into. Instead, he became flesh and sacrificed himself so that we could become the versions of ourselves that he always imagined, one day enjoying perfect communion with him.

I was asked a question a few weeks ago (thanks Zane) that I'm still chewing on. It was posed as a way to do a sort of spiritual inventory check, and I think it's worth thinking about, so I'm going to pass it on to you.

When in the last week did I feel most like myself?

On first glance, I thought this was a much easier question than it turned out to be. But it really gets us to dig at something pretty important. There are moments throughout our weeks where we feel authentic and full of life. There are moments when time slips by us and the moments pass too quickly because we're so engrossed in what we're doing. There are moments that you can point to at the end of the day that made getting out of bed worth it. There are moments when you feel alive.

These are the moments when we're becoming what we were meant to be.

Liddell said that God made him fast, and when he ran he felt God's pleasure. I think this is the perfect model to figure out exactly where God is pointing us. It's a simple matter of fill-in-the-blank.

God made me _______. And when I ________, I feel His pleasure. Your answers here are no accident. This is how God made you. These things are meant to awaken joy in you. And they're meant to bring glory to the one who made you this way.

What are you going to do this week to be more fully you?

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 

 - 2 Corinthians 3:17-18

~RJS~

Weak - R

I've been thinking a lot about weakness recently. I can probably thank Kaman Turner for that one since he usually embarrasses me during our morning workouts.

I remember in elementary school thinking I was fairly weak. I was never the fastest. Definitely not the strongest. When we did that fitness testing in fifth grade, I did a whopping total of seven push-ups. As a side note, I'm pleased to announce that after years of dedication and hard work, I can now do nine.

As I've grown up, I've focused a lot more on weaknesses in other areas, specifically as a Christian. Lack of discipline, failures in kindness, the habitual sin that I can't seem to shake, my inability to keep up with this stupid blog that brings me so much joy. I can never seem to focus on much else besides my weakness.

I think there are a lot of ways that you can describe the Bible, but one of the things that I have noticed recently is that the Bible is a humongous story of human failure. Over and over and over again, people get it wrong. Think of literally any Bible character, with the exception of Jesus, and try to find a time when they didn't fail.

You could look at this as disheartening, but I choose to think of it as God's way to tell us, when we fail for what feels like the thousandth time, that we are in very good company. God loves the screw ups! He's crazy about them! He came to die specifically for them. Remember, it's the sick people that need a doctor, and he gets to be that doctor and he loves that!

Even more than that, if we are to take Paul's word for it, our weakness is exactly what God wants.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side,but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.       - 2 Corinthians 4:7-18

I love this passage so much. Go read it again. I'll wait. Read it through the lens of someone with complete confidence that they are a failure. Think of who is writing this. One of the most zealous Christian-killers of the first century. And he's saying that we were made to be weak so that God's power can shine through us. We carry death around in our body with us so that life will be revealed. We waste away every single day to emphasize the renewal that God is performing in our souls.

The Bible is a humongous story of human failure, but that's not what the story is about. It is about human failure pointing back to the God who is infallible. It is about human weakness pointing back to the God who has no weakness. It is about human imperfection pointing back to the most perfect God. God, in his infinite wisdom, does not let the last word ever be our failure. Through his miraculous redemption, the final word is always God's ability. His ability to love a mess like you and me, to make something beautiful out of our lives, and to display his power through our weakness.

You're going to fail this week. You might even feel like a failure this week. Here's what you need to hear. And I know you need to hear it because I need to hear it. You're human. Messing up is part of the gig. But messing up is not the end of the story. God is at work in you, here and now, in the midst of your perfect little mess.

Celebrate your weakness at some point in the coming days. And celebrate the God who is strong in your weakness.

~RJS~

my first love ~m

Happy late Valentine's Day. GraceYard is back, baby.

'tis the season

I'm writing this on Valentine's day, surrounded by an onslaught of totally cute posts from couples, Instagram stories about Galentine's, people typing paragraphs about self love, or retweeting #trendy, clever tweets that I'm fairly certain are just a low-key reason to complain about being single. I hesitate to even talk about love in a blog because it's pretty much all people are talking about right now, and yet it seems like we're obsessing over something we want so desperately and give so freely. It's like we're desensitized to something we put so much effort into trying to earn. 

If you're expecting me to continue on about how God is Love and how all we need to do is just wade into basking in his glory, your expectation may not be met. Bear with me as I try to unpack this...my brain is full of thoughts that make sense to me, so hopefully I can make them make sense to you.

the treasure you may not know you have

I want to get personal and opinionated for a second to talk about the priceless commodity you own. Some people won't realize how much they need it and how vital it is to their existence until you give it to them. This resource can make good things grow beyond your wildest dreams, and when healthily balanced it can make your entire life just...better. You have a set amount that you give every day whether you want to or not. The only thing you control is where it goes. In a world that seems like we have no choice, you have 100% free will to direct it wherever you want.

You control your love. Your own love is a priceless resource.

I'm not talking about physical attraction or what feels right. I'm talking about the action of love. It's like a steadily-flowing stream that you can't stop, but it's one that you can guide. You're always loving something, proving your love by putting your time, effort, and other resources into it.

There are so many directions we could go with this, but here's what I want to focus on for a little bit:

We can love being loved so much that we have no love left to give ourselves, other people, or who/what we actually want to love.

I said the "L" word so many times in that sentence that I feel like I'm running out of my own love. Hopefully it makes sense to you, though. Think about how much effort you've put into gaining another person's affection or attention. That's how others feel about the love you control. I'm so guilty of chasing it, and I've been so caught up with the concept of love that I've missed the whole purpose of it.

Sometimes we put all of our stock in the value of what we're trying to get, so much so that we forget the value of our own love.

__________________

I titled this blog "My First Love." This is a reference to a unique way many people talk about Jesus that has really stuck with me. It's even a line in multiple Christian songs. An interesting concept to me, for sure.

my love life

My first love was not Jesus.

He was not the first thing I gave my heart to. I loved things before I even understood the concept of a Savior. I'm sure you did, too, but I don't want to jump to conclusions about your life. There are the cute, childlike first loves like "I love my mom" (hopefully that's a love that carries into adulthood as well), "I love fruit snacks," and "I love JJ the Jet Plane." I don't know about you guys, but I put my heart and soul into my playtime, TV time, and food time as a kid.
Also, there are big boy and girl first loves. A job, general busyness, a love for physical things, a love for money, a love for sex, and a love for things that we think can give us value, even just for a moment. I loved many of those things before I loved Jesus, too.

So I missed the boat on the whole "Jesus was my first love" privilege, I guess. That sucks, because imagine how cool it would be to start life truly knowing how good Jesus is...what a thought, what a dream.

"first"

Let's mess with words for a second. I want to argue that though God and his grace can never be the one we loved first, he can be the one we love first. You and I can't control time, but we can control what we do with our time. Crazy how God did that. 

When you think about it from that perspective, we all currently have a first love, or a first place love. Now, it becomes a choice. Now, we're not victims of our previous naiveté. Now, I'm convicted. When I think about the first place priorities in my life, it's harder to justify God taking a back seat.
On the flipside, it makes what I talked about earlier so much more relevant. The fact that we not only control how much of our love goes where, but that we can rewire our first love to be whatever we want it to be. It makes our every action so much more powerful. It also makes songs like this so much more powerful.

I leave you with these three challenges:

1. Know the value of the love you give.

2. Take ownership and love where you want to love.

3. Strive to make Jesus your first love, if you're up for it.

~m

2018 - R

In light of the new year, I wanted to offer some reflections on 2018 for me.

It was a beating.

2018 was without question the most difficult of my life. For many reasons.

One year ago, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what my life was going to look like around this time. Boy was I wrong. I thought that by now I'd be engaged, have a job for next year, have my graduate school plans figured out, and that I wouldn't spend part of New Year's Eve crying in my bedroom.

None of those turned out to be true.

This last semester was the most difficult of my collegiate career, due to the severity of the course load, the complete lack of free time, the multitude of mistakes that I made that hurt people I care about, and the unshakeable suspicion that I was slowly failing at everything I put my mind to. I spread myself thinner than ever before, possibly in attempts to distract myself from the mounting unrest inside me.

2018 was a year of unspeakable pain. And doubt. And frustration. And wrestling. And questions. And worry.

Sorry if you were just expecting a bunch of fun pictures with friends from the past twelve months.

My main takeaway from this year has been the answers to two questions that kept popping up in my life, which I am going to personify in (a dramatized version of) a conversation that I'm pretty sure I had with God this week.

I look at Jesus. I shoot him an accusing look. I'm frustrated with the way my life looks, I'm tired of hurting, and I want to point the finger. He calmly meets my eye, and I'm pretty sure we're thinking the same thing. He and I both know that it's really myself that I'm most fed-up with. I lower my gaze, accepting a defeated posture. Shoulders rounded. Head bowed. I address the ground when I finally find the courage to speak. 

"I've messed up so much. I've wasted the gifts you've given me. I haven't been able to put you first. I've caused so much pain to others. I've done just about everything wrong. All I ever wanted was to live for you, and I managed to screw that up at every turn. Am I even worthy to be called your son any more?" He laughs, not unkindly, and pauses before his answer. 

"Absolutely not." 

The answer has its intended effect. My head shoots up, flashing him a look of hurt. He again meets my gaze, his eyes betraying the smile he's attempting to hide. I'm slow to get the joke."Ask your next question," he says. 

"But . . . Do you still love me anyway?" The smile breaks free. 

"Absolutely."

 The Gospel is beautiful in its simplicity, isn't it? It seems that God is in the habit of transforming messes into something beautiful. Just like he did with 2018.

2018 was a year of unspeakable pain. But it was also a year of incredible joy. Funny how pain can make us forget that part. In 2018, I was blessed with innumerable moments that I know were gifts from God - tiny peaks into the kingdom that he has planned for this world. I participated in the greatest Sing Song act with the greatest club at ACU. I was entrusted to work at Highland in Abilene with some of the most gifted and loving people I've ever met. I got to work with an incredibly talented, impactful, and encouraging preacher (looking at you Jonathan). I was gifted a boss and mentor that is endlessly encouraging, constantly inspiring, and tirelessly loving (looking at you Zane). I gained a second sister who loves fiercely and picked me up on some very low days, probably without even realizing it, because she's just that kind of person (looking at you Deja). I was reminded time and again that I have two incredible parents who love me and are proud of me no matter what. I shared some incredible moments with my oldest friend (looking at you Ashley) - the one rising to the top of the memory would be her giving me the honor of hooding her at graduation. I received further advice, encouragement, instruction, inspiration, and love from a trusted mentor and dear friend (looking at you Greg). I got to see God's breathtaking creation from the top of a mountain for the first time in my life with my best friend at my elbow. I got to work at a church that I love with students that I love. I got to be included in some of the best and worst moments of their lives. I got to be inspired by their enormous amounts of strength displayed in their vulnerability and leadership (looking at you Lucas, Josh, Davis, Colin, and many others). I got to work with two of the greatest people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing (looking at you Wes and Leanne). During my internship, I got to chat (semi-)weekly with a gifted preacher, a powerful advocate for the powerless, and someone I'm lucky to consider a friend (looking at you Collin). I got to feel the support of some of the finest men this world has to offer during the hardest time of my life (looking at you Kaman, Mason, JT, Christian, Mason, Jacob, Dawson, Aaron, and many others). I made a lot of fond memories with friends well past my bedtime, knowing full well I'd regret my lack of sleep in the morning (looking at you Sleep Skippers Club). I was encouraged relentlessly by multiple professors who I am quite confident do not read this blog but who I will shout out anyway (looking at you John, Rodney, Richard, Robert, and Houston). I started a blog with one of my dearest friends and have been endlessly blessed because of it. I invested deeper into my small group and was rewarded weekly with the kindness, joy, and peace they constantly brought (looking at you Ultimate DIG Group, but especially Craig and BA). I acquired a new and very strange nickname from one of the kindest and most joyful people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing ("precious gac" if you're wondering, apparently it's a kind of fruit). I could go on. And I wish I could. There are so many more who weren't named here that made my year incredible.

Endless examples of God's faithfulness. This year I've learned I'm a mess only a Father could love. And boy does he love me well. That monster of a paragraph is evidence enough. I'm entering 2019 immensely grateful for the God who loves in very real and observable ways. I look forward to seeing how God will thwart even my best attempts to ruin his plan for my life in the coming year.

But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silas and Timothy—was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.” For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. - 2 Corinthians 1:18-20

Nothing left to say except Amen.

~RJS~

sunsets through a microscope ~m

I’m obsessed with the sun going down, in case you haven’t gathered.

There's something about the change of color, the slow fade from the light to dark, that final goodbye to the day. The totally unnecessary explosion of color reminds me every time of how totally unnecessary it is for God to pour out grace. Necessary for our well-being, yes, but God has no need for our salvation. The color and majesty of it all just brings a physical representation of how he’s never too far away to the front of my mind, so I like to seek out a sunset whenever I can. Every now and then I’ll set aside an evening to go watch one. They’re better than a movie, seriously.

...Unless it’s overcast. Or there’s a storm.

Then my reminder of how close God is just seems to go away with the arrival of the dark barrier between me and that promise that he’s there, and that he’s making beautiful things just for me. Funny how quick that happens. Things are going good, we’re on track for a solid day and as long as we get what we feel we’re entitled to, but if that one thing falls through the day is ruined. For me, it doesn’t matter if the day was incredible, down to hitting every green light on the way to "my spot" to watch the sun sink down. If I miss that sunset because of some dumb clouds the day wasn’t worth it. Or at least that’s how it feels sometimes, ya know?


I think I can make this blog short and straightforward, because a really simple concept is on my mind right now. That concept is this:

The sunset still happens behind the clouds.

If I can't see a sunset, especially if it's been a long day, I'm bummed out because the sunset isn't happening to me. I'm in the dark, literally. But then if I sit down and zoom out, if I could hop on a plane and get above the clouds there for a minute, I'd suddenly be happy because I'd see that the beautiful colors are actually still there, just blocked.


Easy metaphor, huh?


Clouds/storms = dark times, hard life, stuff like that. Oversimplified? Probably. But I feel like this concept is still valid. We're in the middle of a painful time, a bad day, whatever, and people don't understand because they're not in the middle of the clouds. They say, "why can't you open your eyes and look at the beauty around you?"

But there are those clouds.

I think it's an important thing to acknowledge when that's our situation. How can we know where to go if we don't know where we are? That's one of my most constant battles, where I'll take a bad situation and make it worse by shrugging it off. Andy Mineo hit me hard when he said "...'Cause when you bury emotions, you bury them alive. They only come back stronger, somewhere later in your life..." So why not just address them instead of burying?

The flip side of the suckyness of being in the darkness is, when we're in the middle of muck, we have the assurance that a sunset is still happening. The best part is that we'll get to see another sunset. Soon. Have you thought about what clouds are? They're vapor. nothing more. you could run your hand through through them. Just because there's a lot of vapor doesn't make it any more solid, in the context of clouds. I guess rain could happen, hail at the worst, but my point is the clouds here. A bunch of water that isn't even heavy enough to be held down by gravity is getting in the way of us seeing the beauty in life. It's cool because God can whisp away the clouds or dry up the rain whenever we really think about his glory. Or, if we're too in the thick of it to grasp the magnitude, we have pictures we can look at to remind us... the Bible is full of them.

God's good, because he has way more than a sunset planned. Just to grace us with more than the combination of 7 billion people's imaginations could dream up. I'm pretty pumped for that, not gonna lie.

~mason

PS... If you recognize this post, it's because I recycled it from my solo blog because I have a ton of assignments this week. Happy finals szn! If you want some encouragement to get through this awful time at the end of the semester, click this link:

finals week

(I did a whole devo over that video, it's incredible. Hang in there!)

Confessions of a Hypochondriac - R

Fun fact about me: I'm a self-diagnosed hypochondriac. Whenever I have some little pain in my toenail or something, I start daydreaming about the doctor telling me that the test results came back, and I've tested positive for Incurable Toenail Disease Syndrome. I find this news unbearable, obviously, but I face it with a quiet, grim determination. Set on beating this thing, I eat healthy, exercise when I can, and brace myself for the treatments. My loving community, of course, rallies around me, organizing silent auctions to help pay my hospital bills, bringing food over for me, and clipping their toenails in solidarity with me as the ITDS slowly makes mine fall out. Eventually, though, ITDS gets the better of me, and I pass away peacefully, leaving behind only the memories that people pass around in their stories of me.

I know. I'm very brave.

It's not often that doctors and hypochondriacs agree, but they see pretty eye-to-eye on this one: pain serves a very important purpose in the body. Pain tells the body that something is wrong and we need to fix it before it gets worse. Pain helps us identify an issue, internal or external, when otherwise we wouldn't have a clue. And, ironically, it can be pain that saves a life when it's the only symptom we have.

Hypochondriacs know this just a little too well, so they will often do a kind of self-checkup. You can try it now if you like, many doctors actually recommend it. Close your eyes, focus on feeling the tip of your toes, and slowly work your way up your body, paying close attention to what might feel off or out of place. I just did it and found out that I'm still sore from a workout yesterday. Maybe I'll do some yoga after this.

I was talking with a friend this week (shoutouts to you, Austin Parsons), and he asked me about where I come up with topics for this blog, because as a writer he knows firsthand how difficult it can sometimes be to come up with ideas. A fair point. I hadn't given it too much thought since my ideas seemed to kind of come from all over. I mean, so far I've written about a children's book, getting in an argument with a sheet of notebook paper, and getting a timeout in the fourth grade. Not much rhyme or reason.

But I started to realize that this blog is beginning to serve a very important purpose for me. Once every two weeks, with this pretty arbitrary deadline of midnight on Thursdays that Mason and I have imposed on ourselves looming over my head, I am forced to do a spiritual self-checkup. I stop. I reflect. I identify the hurts in my life. I try to find what's causing me pain. Sometimes I have to dig pretty far. Sometimes pain is lurking in some pretty surprising corners of my life. Sometimes I have pain manifesting itself as other things.

Pain is a helpful thing because it serves as a signpost. It points you toward something that's wrong. Even spiritually. The problem comes in when we try to treat the symptom and not the cause. Without identifying the bigger issue, we're just stumbling in the dark, hoping we find a solution along the way. We do this a lot as Christians. We know that something is broken. We know that Jesus heals. Two and two make four. But I think that it's time for a little self-reflection. I think it's time we're honest with ourselves and ask hard questions. I'm sorry if you disagree, but I think that relying on Christian music or a single Bible verse to heal any hurt is about like doctors chunking a handful of Tylenol at you to fix a broken leg. It might help a little, or make you forget some of the pain, but you've still got something broken.

I firmly believe that God can heal any pain in our lives, but it can't hurt to have an idea of what exactly has gone wrong. Don't stop at, "I'm stressed, God please make me less stressed." Why are you stressed? The future? The workload? The relationship? The job? The lack of a job? What area of your life do you need to invite God into? What area of your life are you refusing to relinquish control of?

My challenge to you is one of the hardest I can give to people in this day and age: stop. Just stop for five minutes and reflect. Find out what's troubling you. Get to the roots. Be honest with yourself, and make yourself uncomfortable. Because, and I can't stress this enough:

God is ready to work wherever you need him.

"I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; I will guide them and restore comfort to Israel’s mourners, creating praise on their lips. Peace, peace, to those far and near,” says the Lord. “And I will heal them.” - Isaiah 57:18-19

~RJS~

construction notes for the encourager ~m

My Grandad never told me he loved me, that I can recall. I remember being panicked because I didn't get to intentionally tell him one last time before he passed away. But then, as I thought about it, an overwhelming calm rested on me when I realized that we had loved each other, deeply. And we both knew it, he more than I. He had proven it to me countless times in silent acts of service that I still have realizations about. I've never been loved in such a way as my Grandad loved me, yet he never said a word, he never had to prove it.

*I can't think of a good segway here so just pretend it's a gripping transition*

encouragers!

Gotta love 'em. Vital to my existence. Without them, I wouldn't know that people actually read what Riley and I have to say on this blog, and therefore I probably wouldn't put as much effort into writing as I do. So thanks, guys. Your words have a deeper impact than you may know.

Whenever I think up ideas for one of these things (blogs), I always just go with what's pressing on my heart the hardest and trust that God will work through people either relating to me or reading what I have to say and teaching me something new. This week the whole idea of encouragement has not let my mind rest.

yellow

Ever notice how on social media there is a TON of encouragement in the form of words, quotes, and happy pictures that make you have to turn your phone screen's brightness down? Those posts pick me up and send me some great reminders. So if you post those, please keep it up. You're not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need.

Something dawned on me recently, though. I think we can come to the agreement that Jesus was the most loving human to live, right (listen, I know your Aunt Bethel is great but hear me out please)?
I just went ahead and googled "encouragement from Jesus" because the only passage I could think of that met this specific criteria was "I said this so you'll have peace," and "take heart! I have overcome the world," both in next-door sentences in John 16. The results that came up on google confirmed my fear. That's all we've got as far as specific personal affirmation from Jesus goes (I could be wrong, this was just a quick skim. But as far as I know there are no specific subcategories of Bible websites entitled "encouragement from Jesus" so that's what I'm going off of).

What the heck, Jesus. Tell me I'm doing a good job at least once. I thrive on this stuff. C'mon, man.

what's encouragement? 

If you're a Christian (and/or just a good person), you've probably taken it upon yourself to encourage another person in one way or another. You've said "it's going to be okay! God's got you."
Noble, true, and good.
You've said, "I'll pray for you," or "I'm talking to God about you tonight."
Incredible.
Do y'all know how good it feels to have someone speak that kind of truth over you? It's awesome. A great high comes from being noticed, validated, and interceded for.

But I have a serious question for you personally, and I don't think I'm alone with my answer to this one:

How much have words of encouragement done for you, really?

For me, they've changed my mindset. Given my mental health a boost. Very good things.

But I can promise you this: there have been times where where those around you just...needed more. I say "needed" simply because their personal struggles would have been less difficult had they received the "more" I'm talking about. I've had times where it felt like I was struggling with holding a huge weight over my head and everyone crowded around me or watched from afar, yelling "good job! I'm praying for you!" These were personal burdens to bear, don't get me wrong. Nobody owed me anything, nor did I expect anything. And verbal support was so much better than being alone.


But Jesus said "take heart" once. 

the point, mason. get to the point. 

What did the most loving, radiant human to ever walk this earth do to keep his followers sane, encouraged, and believing in what he had to say? 

He did. He served. Jesus said "take heart" once, but he said "get up and walk, you're healed" countless times. 

We can't heal people, forgive their sins, or perform miracles. But I started a list of things we can do to embody Christ's example. Italicized because we can mirror him in this way, and that's important.

3 specific examples of what we can do to actually be more like Jesus:

1. Instead of praying for someone, pray with that someone.
2. Instead of telling someone you love them, show them you love them. Try not even saying the words.
3. Remind the mass of people that they're loved, but reach out and tell someone personally that they're specifically loved.

I'm not saying you aren't being effective with kind words, encouraging posts, and personal prayers for people. The title of this blog is "construction notes for the encourager." Construction. So we can build on what we have. If you've ever encouraged someone in that way, you keep this world turning. Keep it up. You're absolutely amazing. But don't check the box and be done. Build on that. Let's add some more sustenance to an already good thing.


Don't get caught saying "you're loved" and moving on. Be the one who loves.


~m