Encouragement

A few weekends ago, I ran a half-marathon...and I would say the run was probably one of the greatest experiences of my life. It had nothing to do with working out, nothing to do with the accomplishment in the finish, and nothing to do with how I ran. I can honestly say that with the race, I have never been so encouraged in all of my life.

When you run a marathon, you have to wear a bib on your shirt with your number so that you can be tracked along the race, and also, if anything happens to you, they can find out who you are. On the bib for this particular race, they had our names printed on them. Everyone who saw me running, or looked at my bib, immediately knew that my name was Laura. Even knowing and saying my name meant a lot to me, people were encouraging me and not just writing me off as another runner.

Along the entire course, people were cheering my name and desiring for me to succeed. They weren't necessarily quiet or concerned about how big my head was, but they wanted to encourage me and to see me finish the race. To be completely honest, I was not even close to being a top finisher, the people cheering knew that I had a long way to go, but it just didn't matter. People running along side me we're encouraging too. We were all a team and that was clear.

In the last mile I felt my eyes welling up, partly because I was just so tired :), but also, a woman had been running along and just abruptly stopped. The woman exclaimed that she just couldn't go any farther, she couldn't make it. Two strangers, of whom I don't know and will probably never meet, came along-side the woman, grabbed her hands...and said that they were going to finish the race with her. The originally surrendured woman, started to run again and she finished the race.

I'm sure this little story of my race doesn't mean that much to you, but it meant so much to me. A few weeks earlier I had went away and heard a speaker talk about encouragement. The speaker asked anyone who had been encouraged too much in the room to raise their hand...no one did. In all reality, we should be encouraging each other. Imagine if we stopped thinking we might make someone elses ego huge and started letting go of our own!

It is God's desire for us to be encouraging each other in a similar way to my race experience. God wants us to be spurring each other towards him...no matter where we are on the course. It simply doesn't matter if someone is a mile behind you or a mile in front of you...we are all running the same race. Even more, how much does God call us to love one another? We are never told to stop encouraging and loving one another. If someone stops, God calls us to take their hand and run with them!

I have not been encouraged too much and I know you haven't either. Encouragement is one of the many blessings of fellowship and something I know I let die for far too long.

I feel like there are a million verses that command us to encourage and to run the race. Here are two that come to mind.

1st verse: Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. 1 thess. 5:11

2nd verse: (just a reminder that it's all about Jesus!): Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. hebrews 12:1-2