The Gift Of Encouragement
How do you identify someone
Truett Cathy
who needs encouragement? That person is breathing.
Encouragement, affirmation, and hope are the main ingredients for making someone feel heard, understood, and valuable. If you say anything to someone hurting, let it bring hope to these things! Resist the temptation to give advice, opinions, or enlightenment at all costs.
Soul-to-soul connection happens when we are present, attentive, and listening. We can change lives when we affirm, encourage, and bring hope. Even Sigmund Freud discovered that symptoms of emotional distress could sometimes be relieved simply by talking in certain ways to his patients.
God agrees and says this about the power of encouragement:
~ “The tongue has the power of life and death” (Proverbs 18:21).
~ “Anxiety weighs down the heart, / but a kind word cheers it up” (Proverbs 12:25).
~ “The soothing tongue is a tree of life” (Proverbs 15:4).
~ “Gracious words are … / sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” (Proverbs 16:24).
When God instructs us to encourage one another whenever we come together, He is including the admonition to harness the power of words for a specific purpose … encouragement! The ability of words to do serious damage or great good makes verbal encouragement especially important.Larry Crabb ~ Encouragement
He goes on to say: “It is a mistake to think of encouragement as a set of specific words or phrases. Encouragement depends less on which words we use than on the motivation behind them. Words that encourage are (1) inspired by love and (2) directed toward fear. These two conditions must be met for words to encourage.”
Crabb also says that we must discipline ourselves to speak slowly, be sensitive to the needs and problems of the person with whom we are speaking, and speak gently to reduce fear. Then, we must avoid responding to people in ways that communicate a rejection of what they share. We must not defend, apologize, attack, correct, or offer quick advice.
Crabb also says that we must discipline ourselves to speak slowly, be sensitive to the needs and problems of the person with whom we are speaking, and speak gently to reduce fear. Then, we must avoid responding to people in ways that communicate a rejection of what they share. We must not defend, apologize, attack, correct, or offer quick advice.
Encourage with these three responses: