Encouraged

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." Michael Jordan

When we fail it is pretty easy to get discouraged. I think discouragement is one of the primary tools of the evil one. I believe one of our primary "jobs" in the body is to be an encourager. Failure will happen. Bad things will happen. We will be disappointed. But I'm not thinking about encouragement in the sense of reminding a person about how capable they are -- I'm thinking about reminding a person about how capable God is. That is, encouraging one another in what we believe about God and who He is. God is the basis of true encouragement. I want our desire for one another in our body to be the same as Paul for the church at Rome:

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. (Romans 1: 11-12)