From Sundi Jo: This is a guest post by Jeff Randleman. Jeff if the the youth minister at Brooksville Christian Church, in Brooksville, Florida, husband to Heather, and father to five wonderful kids. You can read his blog at jeffrandleman.com and follow him @randleman on Twitter. Want to submit your guest post? Click here for the details. 

We just moved over 1000 miles.
We left southern Missouri and moved to the Gulf Coast of Florida.

We don’t know anyone here.  The culture is different from the small-town, mid-western mindset we are used to.  In fact, we’ve barely experienced anything about this state at all.  My wife and I visited Florida once, over ten years ago, on vacation.
That’s it.
And so, uprooting my family (we have five kids, with another on the way) and moving them halfway across the continent was no little thing.  I feel a little of what Abraham must have felt when God called him to leave Ur and go someplace else.  At least, in my case, I knew what our destination was.

We packed up all of our belongings, loaded the trucks, counted all the kids to make sure we weren’t missing someone, and left everything and everyone we knew behind.
In Florida, everything is brand new.  We are starting fresh, in a new church, with new people, making new friends.
Needless to say, we felt very alone.
We needed something.
We needed encouragement.
Encouragement changes things.
In the midst of our feeling alone, several people came alongside us and started to build new relationships with us.  People started to help us feel like we belong here.
That’s the point of encouragement.  It builds up.  It provides a support system.  It undergirds you so you can face the challenges of the world knowing that you aren’t facing them on your own.
Encouragement changes things.
Encouragement changes your perspective
Moving can be overwhelming.  We definitely felt that.  Right after we arrived in Florida, my new co-worker got sick, leaving me in the office on my own for the first several days.  We were looking at a mountain of boxes in our home that didn’t seem to be diminishing. Our kids were emotional, missing their friends back in Missouri.  My wife wasn’t feeling well because of the new pregnancy.
I felt like life was beating me down.  One night, I stepped outside and leaned against my car in the driveway and just cried.  The questions burning in my mind were centered around the theme of “Did I do the right thing?”
But a few days later, I went to lunch with the other staff member, he showed me around town, we sat in my office and talked about almost everything.  All of a sudden, my perspective shifted.  I realized that I wasn’t alone here.
Encouragement keeps you going
I confess, I was almost to the point of considering moving back to Missouri.  Even though my position there had already been filled, we still have a house there.  The first few weeks after this move were some of the lowest I’ve experienced in a long tome.
As these thoughts were going through my head, we met and started getting to know some of the people in our new church.  And the simple things, a pat on the back, the “‘m glad you’re here” statements, one person brought me some incredible coffee; all these things served to infuse a little life back into me, little by little.
Just knowing that there was someone in my corner was greatly uplifting.
Encouragement builds hope
Once I started to see that my family and I weren’t alone in this endeavor, it was easier to start looking toward the future.  It was easier to start seeing the possibilities and the potential that I saw when we were considering this move and if it was God’s leading.
Hope provides the catalyst to see beyond the moment.  Hope allows us to see the “what ifs” around us, and to grasp them.
With encouragement come the ability to look to the future with positivity, knowing that if God placed me here, he will provide for me here.
Encouragement provides a blessing
Psalm 31:24 tells us to “be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord.”
Encouragement gives me so much more than just stamina, or perspective, or hope.  It does all of that, and more.  God’s blessings in my life seem to take the most tangible form sometimes in the form of encouragement.
I have strived to build several relationships in my life with people who I know will be a source of encouragement to me.  I don’t want them to tell me how good I am; I want them to remind me of how good God is.  I need them to help me refocus so that I can see God’s work more clearly.
When I felt completely alone after our move, one of these people called me.  It was completely unexpected, but it was exactly what I needed.  And after a few minutes of conversation, I could feel my spirits lifting.
Encouragement is empowering
When I’m experiencing encouragement, I feel like I can take of the world.  Encouragement empowers.
Once we got beyond the first few weeks in this new church opportunity, and once we started to build a few new relationships, all of a sudden, things took a turn.  The opportunities seemed richer, deeper, and pregnant with possibilities.  I’m looking at the next several months of this ministry and can see bright things instead of the darkness I feared.
And as a result, I become more of an encourager as well.  When God uses others to build me up, he provides what is needed for me to pass it on to still others.
Encouragement changes things for the better
Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.” That is what encouragement is.  It changes things.  And it changes them for the better.
Goethe said it similarly:  “Treat a man as he appears to be and you make him worse.  But treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.”
Encouragement changes things for the better.
So, who needs to be encouraged?
S. Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A, said it best:  “How do you identify someone who needs encouragement?  That person is breathing.”
That statement tells me two things.  I need encouragement.  And so do you.
So build relationships that are encouraging.  And be an encourager to others.  It really will change things.
Do you need some encouragement right now?  How can you develop the ability to be a better encourager? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.