Sycamore

JD Grear wrote a post recently that I thought was worthy of passing on.  It’s on a topic that we rarely discuss - how we encourage others with our words.  Grear is a pastor who, like everyone, gets discouraged at times.  And he found that what really helped was when people gave him some encouragement.  I know it sounds obvious, but it seems like something we don’t do as often as we should.  Give it a read after checking out some quotes below:

It is easy, you see, for us to “assume the strengths” in others and to “notice the weakness.” We can even write off our pointing out their faults as being “helpful” to them, or not pointing out their strengths as an attempt to guard their pride. Bull. Such an attitude shows little to no awareness of the human condition, or how God works. I believe we should reverse that. We should assume others’ weaknesses and notice their strengths.

One of my favorite theologians on this was Martin Luther. Luther said that God’s way was to redefine reality with WORDS. God looked into chaos and spoke the hopeful, power-infusing words of creation. He looked into the chaos of our sin and declared us righteous in His Son. By speaking those words (coupled with our belief in them), He reconstituted our reality. You see, if He had declared us lost He would have spoken truth, but He spoke an even greater truth by recreating us with His words.