An encouraging word can have an incredible life span, far beyond the moment in which it is spoken.
Seventeen years ago, a young woman encouraged my wife as she walked through a discouraging season while in college. This young woman shared with her Psalm 61:1–4, in which David prays,
“Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy. Let me dwell in your tent forever! Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings.”
That encouraging word had a significant impact on my wife, who still remembers it after nearly two decades.
Further, that word of encouragement has multiplied into the lives of others. Since then, my wife has shared that very passage with other people who have wrestled with hardship and disappointment. More recently, as I was considering how to encourage a ministry partner of mine who is walking through a difficult season in life, she opened her Bible and read to me David’s words in Psalm 61:1–4. Not only did I find it encouraging, but I thought my ministry partner would as well. So the next morning, I spent 30 minutes on the phone with this brother, discussing that passage and encouraging him from its truths. By the end of our video call, his disposition had changed. He was no longer solemn; rather, there was light in his eyes and excitement on his face. This word had encouraged him so much that he was already considering how he might teach this passage to his congregation.
So over the course of 17 years, this particular word has been passed on from one person to another in a recurring cycle of encouragement. It travelled from a young woman to my wife, then from my wife to me, then from me to my local ministry partner, and now from this local pastor to the members of his village church.
Thus what began as a simple word of encouragement to one person has since traversed the globe and is now impacting believers on the other side of the world. That’s quite a profound impact!
So let us never underestimate the enduring power of a faithful and fit word of encouragement. Rather, let us “encourage one another every day, as long as it is still called ‘today,’ so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb 3:13).
Who knows? That encouragement might end up affecting thousands over the years and across the world.
