We have all experienced times when we have had a coffee with someone and leave feeling great and other times feeling, well not so great and sometimes down right rubbish! The odd thing is that in both cases nothing really stood out as positive or negative just a feeling?!
The Bible says that 'Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.' - Proverbs 16:24
'The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.' - Proverbs 18:21
Now let us just think about this for a minute. As Christians we believe for healing, we often pray and seek God for supernatural intervention. Yet do we give the same credence to our words. How often do we seek God for something supernatural while failing to give life in the natural on a daily basis. I am not saying we don't pray for the sick, we should definitely do that. What I am saying is imagine with me the difference we could make if EVERY single person we spoke to left us feeling healthier!
Rick Warren says, “The first job of leadership is to love people.” He is not wrong, in fact he is simply stating what Jesus told us 'to love one another' but I think we go further and say “The first job of a christian is to love people.”.
5 easy ways to be an encourager with your words:
Take notice, it sounds simple, but one of the biggest ways to encourage and breathe life in to others is simply to stop thinking about ourselves.
'I see in you...' Proactively think about what qualities you see in them AND then tell them. It can be something little even. Just say something!
Remind someone that God loves them. Not in a general way, but in a specific and intimate way. He knows everything about them, their beauty and their ugly spots and loves them.
'THANK YOU FOR ...' Most of us are pretty polite but it makes a huge difference when we make a point of saying thank you to people and even more so when we can be specific about what for.
Go public! Everyone, no matter what they say, likes public adoration. They may not want to stand on a stage to a standing ovation but everyone likes praise to be public. (I talk about this in my leadership blog www.zealforthehouse.com ) So when it's appropriate thank them on a group chat or perhaps big them up on social media
Confession time, I am a critical thinker. That means I am often weighing what people say / do and thinking if it is good, bad and how it could be improved. This is a good quality, BUT, without keeping it in check can also make me a total douche bag! 😂
I have had to learn to offer encouragement in a very intentional way. It is so easy to overlook peoples efforts or positive attributes. I have caught myself doing this so many times. I own a business with a good friend and often he will ring me up when he has struck a deal or something, my first thought is how we could have improved, this is not to say that I would have done it better, I just think of how we improve our business overall. The problem is if I don't think before I speak I can make a suggestion for how we can make it even better... However, suggestions for improvement without acknowledgement of progress is criticism. He will feel undervalued and discouraged.
suggestions for improvement without acknowledgement of progress is criticism!
It is not a big shift to make but like most things requires the emotional intelligence to think about how the other person will feel. I have started trying to make a note of improvements I think about so I can raise those separately at another time so that in the moment I can simply congratulate and encourage my colleague. Yeah I fail regularly, but awareness is the key to success.
As we know the opposite is also true and we have all had people suck the life out of us with their words too. Bridget Jones Diary (yes I have watched it, and yes I think it's great) has a really funny little interaction with the Jelly Fish woman (see clip).
This funny little clip demonstrates nicely how we feel when someones words are not building us up.
So the question is how do we want people to feel after speaking to us? Do we want them to feel encouraged, strengthened, built up or like they have gone a few rounds with a jellyfish!!
Proverbs • words have power • Speak life • There's life & death in the tongue
♥ is not felt unless it is expressed
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