Encouragement

The other day a friend emailed me. She knew I was being less than patient with my recovery following surgery. Patience is not my long suit. Those of you who know me can attest to that. Anyway, my friend, Kathy, sent me a Bible verse as encouragement. It was Psalm 59:16 which reads, “But as for me, I will sing about your power. Each morning I will sing with joy about your unfailing love. For you have been my refuge, a place of safety when I am in distress.”

Somehow, when it arrived in my inbox, it was exactly what I needed to hear. It encouraged me greatly. That made me think of another Bible verse, or so I thought. You see, I was sure there was a verse that said, “encourage one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” So, today I went to look up that verse to see where it is in the Bible. It’s not there! There is a verse that says “encourage one another…..”, actually, there are three of them. 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Hebrews 3:13 and Hebrews 10.25. AND, there are two verses with “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs”; Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, but never are the two phrases found together. Hmm….apparently this is the danger in only partially memorizing scripture.

Still, I don’t think God would ever complain about us encouraging one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. I think the important thing here is that we are encouraging one another and if we can do it with His word, all the better. Thanks, Kathy, for your encouraging words.