Encouragement from the sidelines

Hebrews 12:1 speaks of "a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith" and running with endurance. I love the scene of people running in a marathon with crowds lined along the side screaming "come on!", and "keep going!". Far too often this isn't picture of christian community. As people run a long and tough race there is often opposition and others looking to criticize and "correct in love". It's not the way God intended it to be. He intended for us to encourage one another. Hebrews intimates that even those gone before us, the great heros of faith, are our crowd of witnesses encouraging us to keep going.

I used to blog regularly. I posted my daily blog on youversion, blogger and facebook. If you're reading this entry, you're probably on one of those sites now. i don't do this so often now. Not because I don't want to. But I've found I need to focus more on my private blog, my journal. Just between God and I. But I've also found that there are some really good bloggers out there. Far more accomplished than me. And I'm not talking about the pro's. Those who do this for a living. They may be great but what blows me away is the insight of the amateurs and the young. My 14yr old daughter has started blogging and she's really good. I know a father would say that but really, she is good.

So in line with the verses in Hebrews I join a great crowd of witnesses to those of you blogging and commenting on youversion about the word of God and shout "come on!" and "keep going!".

When you blog or comment about scripture you rarely get positive feedback. People seem to take more effort to correct your theology. But for my part I want to say what a blessing so many of these entries are. Praise God for the big names. But in fact there are thousands of unknown people, engaging with scripture on a daily basis and blessing the socks of people like me.