Passage: 1 Corinthians 14:26-40
This is the verse that formed me this week….
26 Well, my brothers and sisters, let’s summarize. When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in tongues, and another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must strengthen all of you.
I didn’t find this an easy chapter to get anything practical out. It’s about orderly worship in the Corinth Church so I struggled to apply these verses to my every day life other than perhaps Sunday when I go to church. However when you do a little bit of ‘copy’ ‘paste’ with the verse you could get this…
“Well, my brothers and sisters, let’s summarize.
Everything that is done must strengthen all of you when you meet together.”
Ok well this I can talk about 🙂 and that’s exactly what I can going to talk about…talking.
I love to talk so you can imagine how much trouble I’ve gotten myself into and how many times I’ve stuck my foot in my mouth, (many times). My husband can tell you all about it.
Anyway let’s get serious here. When meeting together I truly believe that no matter where we are God wants us to strengthen each other as Christians and especially those who don’t know Him as their Saviour. So this is a practical way of applying this first verse to your life. I wondered how the world would be different if every morning we prayed for a way to strengthen someone whether it be a stranger or a fellow believer in Christ. How many of our actions or things we say strengthen others or tear people down.
Social medias have taken off and are HUGE. Everyone knows about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, now Pinterest and of course Blogs 🙂 Some people think these social medias are an invasion of privacy, a waste of time, a channel to gossip or brag and so on. They can be, that’s true. But they can also be a way to love and connect to people who you would not normally have the opportunity to do so.
Blogs are helping people to share their stories in a way so personal that nothing else a person can do will do this more effectively and reach such large audiences! People all over the world can be connected and share their love and support with one another, encourage one another and witness to others. Who would have thought that social medias would be used to spread the gospel…we would not have guessed this 5 years ago. But how amazing is it that we don’t even have to leave our home to positively impact millions of people!
My challenge to you is if you are active on these social medias ask yourself if in what you are writing/showing is strengthening others or tearing people down.
For all of us I wonder what the world would look like if we said a simple breath of a prayer every morning, “Lord help me to strengthen someone today.” I love ‘breath prayers’. They are short to the point ‘God this is what I have to say in a nutshell prayers’.
Some of mine are:
“Lord I want to see YOU today.”
“Lord have mercy of me.”
“Lord show me a way.”
“Thank you Lord.”
“Lord give me wisdom in this situation.”
“Lord I’m glad you know how this will end.”
“Lord give me courage.”
“Lord keep me safe.”
If we start asking God to help us strengthen someone each morning we may not get our chore list done. We may have to stop and listen to encourage a friend or write a thoughtful email. It may be that while at work on your own projects your co-worker is struggling and you stop to help them. Whatever we do if we see someone struggling as Christians who have been saved by grace we shouldn’t walk away and do nothing. Hopefully their struggles are not making you feel better about yourself because that is just a really unhealthy place to be.
I struggled with depression and infertility. Two very untalked about things. I don’t people if people were too scared to say anything, pretened not to know what was going on or just thought I loved my career and was too busy for ‘girl nights and babies’. I likely made it look like that. But I was actually more hurt by some things people said as you can imagine…I could write a whole blog about what NOT to say to a young woman who would LOVE children but can’t have them.
Anyway my point is in situations like these where you may not know how to help just take time to listen. Sometimes strengthening someone is not about doing anything but just BEING there. The person that helped me most was just there. At the time she also had her struggles too, in fact mine felt small in comparison. This was good as it took away some of my self-centered pity that sometimes ‘holds hands’ with depression. We hardly spoke about our struggles…she didn’t know what to say to me, I didn’t know what to say to her…we just ate ice cream 🙂
In closing lets just all pray about how we can strengthen each other. I’d love to hear how some of you have strengthened someone today and may all of you be strengthened through this blog!
In the clay,
Chantal Dube