How to Encourage Yourself

Judges 20:22
“And the people the men of Israel encouraged themselves, and set their battle again in array in the place where they put themselves in array the first day.”

The children of Israel had just experienced a real bad day. They went to war against the children of Benjamin, at the LORD’s leading, and they lost the battle. The amazing part about these people is that, instead of sitting and sulking on the bad day, they got up and encouraged themselves. They chose not to let a real bad day define them or control the rest of their future.

Have you ever had one of those days when it seemed like everything went wrong? When you have one of those days, you have a choice to let the day define the rest of your life, or you can learn to encourage yourself and let that day become a steppingstone to a better future. Let me show you several things these people did to encourage themselves that you must do to encourage yourself when you are having one of those bad days.

First, there will be times when nobody will know how to encourage you. As good intentioned as many people are, most people won’t know how to encourage you when you are having a bad day. You must not allow one’s failure to encourage you cause you to slip into a self-pity slide of feeling sorry for yourself.

Second, you must learn what encourages you. You must learn what you need to do to pick yourself up when times are bad. A mistake that people make is that they never study themselves to know what picks them up when they are down. One of the best things you can learn about yourself is what you need to do to pick yourself back up after having a bad day.

Third, be sure you are doing what is right. Make sure the bad day isn’t your fault. If you have done something wrong that caused the bad day, change what you have done so that you don’t have another bad day.

Fourth, understand that doing right doesn’t always mean that life will be good. Just because you had a bad day when you were trying to do right doesn’t make doing right bad. There will be times when doing right doesn’t immediately bring good, but that doesn’t mean you should stop doing right.

Fifth, don’t stop doing what you normally do. Just like these people went back to the battle, so you must never stop doing your normal daily routines. The worst habit to get into after you have had a bad day is to stay home, sleep in, and sulk. The best way to turn a bad day into a good week is to keep going.

Sixth, pray when you are having a bad day. God wants to hear your problems. You can cast your problems on God and let Him help you instead of carrying all the problems yourself. Praying will do more for your bad day because of being in the presence of the God who lifts burdens.

Seventh, get counsel if you need it. Hearing your pastor tell you what to do is often all you need to pick yourself up after a bad day.

Finally, don’t quit. Don’t make your bad day worse by quitting. Quitting has never turned a bad day into a good day. If you don’t quit, you can turn your bad day into a good week.

Author: Allen Domelle