One of the best antidotes to discouragement while going through difficult times is to have others standing with you at your side. If they are fellow believers this also helps to maintain spiritual vitality in your life. When you feel alone it is easy to get discouraged. And discouragement is often the first step toward defeat. Just having someone standing at your side is often all that’s necessary to keep on going.
They also can provide insight into some things you might not see on your own. A new perspective from someone else often clears the air and vision, and this usually opens new options that might work better. Someone else also can provide a corrective voice. It might not just be a better way of doing something. It might be a right way over against a wrong way.
There is also the matter of accountability. Teamwork provides this naturally. The closer you are as team members the more you will want to work together harmoniously, and this will create a synergism that can be found no other way.
Solomon put it this way in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!...Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
In Romans 15 Paul encourages teamwork in a general way. In Romans 16 he points out individuals and the part they played in his life and team as he went about carrying out the work of God.
