Who's Your Barnabas?

This title is a chapter title from the book 11 Indispensable Relationships You Can't Be Without by Leonard Sweet.  We have been using his book in our Wednesday Adult Bible class for our study time.  Last night we covered the idea of needing an encourager and being an encourager.  One of my takeaways from last night was that Sweet speaks of 5 different kinds of Barnabi.  They are Good Samaritan Barnabas, Onesimus-Big Brother Barnabas, Epaphras-Prayer Barnabas, Sarah-humor Barnabas, and Ruth-endurance Barnabas.  Basically these are a range from the always happy person who hugs, shakes hands and never is down to the one who will sit with you during your complete fight of cancer.  Get the book and read about each one, it will be worth it.  What I appreciate about the different types of encouragers is that it means that we can all be encouragers and that we can find encouragement.  We tend to have a picture of what it means to be encouraged and when we don't receive that one particular thing, we believe we aren't being encouraged.  However, there are different ways to be encouraged and with our eyes open to those ways we can find the fruit on the encouragement tree.  

Also, we can look at these different ways and see if where we can grow in how we encourage others.  Life is tough and we can not do it alone.  We need the support and love of others to continue traveling this journey.  I would challenge you to pick up this book and read about all these needed relationships in your life.  And if you do I would love to hear what kind of Barnabas you are to others.  And what kind of Barnabas do you need in your life.  

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