My team has a weekly meeting where all the workers in the city gather together to discuss the week and grow together. There is usually coffee and snacks during the meeting and afterwards we all have lunch. We take turns hosting and leading each week. I greatly appreciate the time because I have a chance to get to know my other teammates better. I get to see the interactions within family units and across the team as a whole: how responsibilities are shared, what hospitality looks like, who takes coffee vs tea vs juice, where everyone is in language learning, how individuals process new ideas, how conflict is handled cross-culturally. I especially love it because we start with a time of worship, have open and vulnerable conversations, and end with prayer. It is a sacred space in the week.
Each meeting has a main idea and the leader of the meeting cultivates conversations around that topic in relationship to the individual, the team, and the larger host culture. This last meeting I had the opportunity to host and my topic was encouragement.
Encouragement is such a broad topic. Initially as I was preparing, my thoughts strayed to the shallow, positive encouragement one might see in posters or hear at sporting events. "You can do it!" "Keeping going!" "Never give up!" When I googled encouragement, I got loads of colorful pictures with flowers, nature, and sunshine as well as lists of "Encouraging saying to tell to your kids." It felt obnoxiously positive and very fickle. When I am truly in need of encouragement something like that feels like a smack in the face and a breach of trust.
As I started to think deeper, I was drawn to the Truth. Verses began coming to my mind. The first references were from Hebrews, thinking about our great High Priest, who is not unable to sympathize with our weakness but knows intimately the pain of temptation and suffering. Then I began to think of the prophets. In Isaiah, the Lord is crying out, "Comfort, comfort my people…Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill be made low…" Finally, my thoughts drifted towards the early believers, who were encouraged through letters with such sayings as "Do not cease to continue to meet together, encouraging one another in the hope that we have" and "Rejoice in all things".
I began to see how encouragement is deeper and more unique than just positive chants. It is sitting with someone who has been brought low. It is being humble and vulnerable about your own failure and struggles. It requires time and hard honesty. Many of the verses I found that were the most encouraging were the ones that were a bit more melancholy. Ones talking about afflictions and suffering, ones speaking of correction and repentance, ones about the fleetingness of life. For behind all these verses we find a more solid and eternal hope. Our souls can be encouraged. We can be brought back from our lowest pits. We can be embolden and enlivened again. Because the end is already written and the One who calls us to himself, who calls us children, has already been victorious.
As we were discussing encouragement as a team, I was so encouraged by the other team members responses. They were quick to recognize that there is more to encouragement. It is not a quick positive word but a process, a relationship. Each person we meet may need a different kind of encouragement, especially thinking about cross-cultural encouragement. In this culture, sometimes it is hard to be honest about failures and personal flaws. In the team's experiences, such conversations anger people and they are quick to reject such encouragement. To encourage someone after they have made a mistake or are in a hard time feels humiliating and mocking. One way it is possible is to stand by friends through hard times in relationships. Many people here would just give up on a friendship if there is an argument, but being willing to push through and stand by that person even through disagreements shows a difference that makes them question why.
The conversations with the team greatly challenged me. If I desire to be someone who encourages others, what other foundational things need to be in place? How honest am I in relationships? How often do I confess my own failures to others for the sake of the sharpening each other and building one another up?
The final image that came to my mind on the topic was a three-legged race. At first this may seem silly since I just finished talking about how encouragement is deeper than cheering someone on during a sporting event. However, think about the image. Two people are tied together and must support each other while also endeavoring to get to the other side. There is a level of closeness and intimacy, both physically and emotionally. You must trust the other person. You must work together, compromising on the stride length and the pace of the steps. At times one may be stronger. Other times the other person may have more sure footing and steadier balance. When one falls, the other must completely stop and get down on their level to help them back up. It may be difficult at times, but only together can you successfully get to the end.
I challenge you also to consider closely this topic. How can you encourage someone? Maybe that does look like cheering someone on. Maybe it is a first step to deepening a relationship so that you can have hard conversations. Maybe it is just sitting with a friend who is hurting, being with them. Maybe it is praying for wisdom on who in your life needs to be reminded of the hope we have.