I love meeting with people over coffee (or tea, or whatever). I love learning about their lives, hearing their stories. I feel connected and honoured to get a glimpse of who people are, something I don’t always get to experience on a Sunday morning.

Last week I had such a meeting. This individual had requested to meeting because they were going through something and wanted to talk it out. Just before I left the house I received a disturbing text. My spirit was disturbed, I felt anxious and distracted. I knew I was not in the right head space to meet anyone. I contemplated cancelling the meeting but I knew that it was important to go, they were hurting and I wanted to be an encouragement to them…so I prayed and met this dear soul for “a coffee.”

What I discovered is what I knew all along — God is good.

I was so depleted (and on the verge of tears) when I went into the coffee shop and by the time we hugged to say goodby I was refreshed.

A generous person will prosper, whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. (Proverbs 11:25)

I don’t know about you but I have found that in the toughest season, when I am feeling down and struggling with my own life circumstances the opportunity to listen and encourage another always ends up encouraging my own heart.

Have you ever experienced that?

This Proverb illustrates a paradigm that is easier said than done and doesn’t always seem to be true at face value, does it?

Does a generous person always receive more in abundance?

Does a person who blesses others always feel refreshed and filled up?

I think the principle in this Proverb is rooted in the fact that it is God who provides and supplies our every need.

Prosperity can certainly, and often, refers to material abundance but scripture always refers to prosperity in abundance in eternally significant ways. What I mean is, God provides for our physical needs and our emotional needs and our spiritual needs and when we give of our resources — time and emotional energy — we are not pulling from our own resources but that of Christ.

So whatever you are going through today don’t underestimate how you might be refreshed when you seek to refresh another person.

Maybe you know someone in need? Someone who could use some encouragement? Before you question your own capacity — ask God if you are being led to bless them. And then ask God to provide, knowing that it is out of God’s provision that you show generosity or encouragement to others.

And when you trust God to do so, trust God to do a work in your heart as well. Our God is a God of unlimited strength, power and resources!

With God… refresh and be refreshed!