Welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.
Trisha, my blogger friend at Joy of Reading, and I decided on calling this post “His Encouragement” because our real source of peace, strength, and security can only come from Jesus Christ. He and He alone is our constant! We pray and hope that these Thursday posts become a real encouragement to you and help you end your week strong in God’s love and purpose for you. God bless!
Today’s Thursday Encouragement comes from:
Psalm 119:41-42 (ESV)
Let Your steadfast love come to me, O Lord, Your salvation according to Your promise; then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me, for I trust in Your Word.
I rarely feel like a David, an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, or an Elisha. I’ve never been cool like Jael or Deborah.
More times in my life I’ve been a Naomi — devastated, small, seemingly insignificant, and not sure God is even talking to me.
I long to be strong in my faith and my abilities for God, but I often doubt myself. It takes me hours and lots of prayers just to come up with one Thursday Encouragement post. If someone comes at me in a fierce way asking questions about God, I tend to shrink away from the attack. And, sometimes, it’s like everything I know to be true about God and His Word disappears from my brain. I’m often left speechless, and I hate this! How can I be a woman of faith, yet words escape me when I need them most? Am I not really faithful? Am I a fraud?
During Bible study this week, Psalm 119:41-42 has been on repeat. When God repeats a verse or two or three during weekly Bible study, I sit up and take notice! It’s actually the second part, verse 42, that caught my attention: then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me.
Whoa! Wait a minute. What?! When will the answers come?
So I backed up to verse 41. When God’s steadfast love and salvation come to me, THEN I will have the answers. Then I will know what to say because, as Jesus tells us in Luke 12:12, it will be the Holy Spirit teaching me what to say and when to say it.
But how does God’s steadfast love and salvation come to us? Through Bible study and prayer. Through establishing a relationship with God, and then being present in that relationship every day. When we are in a relationship with God, His steadfast love and salvation will come to us, and then the Holy Spirit will be able to give us the words we need in order to answer those who taunt us. This is how we go from being Naomis to Deborahs and Jaels. This is how we become like David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Elisha.
Do you struggle with knowing the right thing to say about God? Do answers seem to flee your head when you are confronted by non-believers? Don’t stress. You are not alone. The key to this problem is simple — go to God, study His Word, and He will fill you with His love, salvation, and words!
NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN!
WHAT BIBLICAL VERSE IS ENCOURAGING YOU TODAY?
Check out more Thursday Encouragement from my fellow blogger friends:
Trisha @ Joy of Reading
Jacquelyn @ A Heavenly Home
Jessica @ A Baker’s Perspective
Becca @ The Becca Files
Gina @ Stories by Gina
Rebecca @ Rev. Rebecca Writes
Andi @ Radiant Light
Leslie @ Words of Hope
The Christian Fiction Girl 
Thank you for sharing this today. I often don’t know what to say to others either. But sometimes, when all they want to do is argue, maybe then it is best to stay silent. Maybe that time isn’t meant for discussion because it would fall on deaf ears and a hard heart.
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I think you are right. I often wonder if it’s God closing my mouth in those moments. 🤔
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I have had a really hard time coming up with ideas for my His Encouragement posts too so this was really encouraging for me to read. As far as interactions with others go, it’s something I thought a lot more about in the past but not as much recently since my social circle has significantly shrunk in the last 2 years. I’m not working for big business anymore and many of the people I work with now are also Christians. But who knows how long this will last, and it’s something I faced quite a bit when I worked for bigger companies.Great thoughts for the day!
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