The Encourager

I am convinced that there is not enough encouraging prevalent in our local churches today. And, there definitely is not enough encouraging in our world at large. Just listen to any newscast today, local or national, and see how uplifting that experience was not!

In the early church, there was a believer, Joses, who was known as a “comforter,” “consoler,”  in so much that the apostles changed his name from Joses to Barnabas, which means “The son of consolation.” Do you know of any Barnabas types? There are some in every New Testament assembly, but it is a spiritual gift that is not as commonly exercised today as are most of the other gifts. “He that exhorteth” (Romans 12:8) is one who is an encourager. It is one of the several spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit imparts upon members of His Body, the Church, and one that is desperately needed in today’s world!

But then, there has always been a need. Catherine, the wife of Martin Luther, dealt with a depressed husband in a rather dramatic way. F.W. Herzberger related this incident: “One day when skies loomed blackest, this greatest and bravest of men, lost heart and in an oversad spirit refused to take courage again. Neither eating nor drinking nor speaking to anxious wife, children or friends, till Catherine dons widow garments, and deepest of mourning pretends. Surprised, Luther asked why she sorrowed, ‘Dear Doctor,’ his Katie replied, ‘I have cause for the saddest of weeping, for God in His heaven has died!’ Her gentle rebuke did not fail him; He laughingly kissed his wise spouse, took courage, banished his sorrow, and joy reigned again in the house!”

Mickey Mantle’s bout with discouragement did not turn out so happily. One day, the legendary home-run king of the 50’s, after striking out repeatedly, was obviously depressed. He says, “When I got back to the clubhouse, I just sat down on my stool and held my head in my hands, like I was going to start crying. I heard someone come up to me, and it was little Tommy Berra, Yogi’s boy, standing there next to me. He tapped me on the knee, nice and soft, and I figured he was going to say something nice to me, like ‘You keep hangin’ in there,’ or something like that. But all he did was look at me, and then he said in his little kid’s voice, ‘You stink.’”

Maybe others, at a time when you were especially discouraged, did not say “You stink,” but they may have non-verbally conveyed little Tommy Berra’s message to you. What to do? Well, thankfully we have Paul’s counsel “…that we through patience and comfort (encouragement) of the scriptures might have hope. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus.” (Romans 15:4,5)

One German writer well spoke when he said, “Correction does much, but encouragement does more.” Correction  and encouragement combined, of course, does most. Paul wrote to more than one church words of correction, but as in Galatians 5:10 he would often say something to the effect that “I have confidence in you….” We could learn from Paul that sometimes with difficulty correction must be meted out, but a word of encouragement at the right moment and in the right spirit can go a long way in providing hope as well as help. “Encouragement is like a peanut butter sandwich—the more you spread, the better the sandwich sticks together.”

Charles Plumb was a U.S. Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent six years in a communist Vietnamese prison.

He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons he learned from that experience.

One day, Plumb was sitting in a restaurant with his wife when a man from another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”

“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.

“I packed your parachute,” the man replied.

Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!” Plumb assured him “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Plumb lost sleep over that chance meeting, wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. “I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said ‘Good Morning, how are you? Or anything—because you see I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.’” Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on the long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know. (copied)

The pilot now tells his story of survival, and when he does he asks the question, “Who’s packing your parachute?” He wants to create an awareness of how interdependent our lives are and how thankful we ought to be for the “parachute packers” in our lives and how much a simple word of encouragement could make a difference. We cannot all fly high on critical missions; some will be working unseen and unsung in the bowels of the ship, so to speak. But a simple “Good morning, how you doing?” or a word of thanks or a smile can mean the world to someone. Your spiritual gift may not be an “encourager” like Barnabas’ was, but every one of us can find someone today to encourage. It can be inexpensive to do, but costly not to do. Be an encourager now! It is desperately needed in this present darkness.

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” (Provs. 25:11)