Thursday, July 10, 2014

Speaking the Spiritual Languages of Encouragement


There is a thing that’s nurtured within the embodiment of encouragement: virtues of joy, peace-ability, and gratitude, for just a few.
To encourage someone is to step aside them and give them a gift of holy sustenance; a human being cannot thrive without cause of hope borne of encouragement. But, even if the soul cannot find any encouragement, they find it from within themselves, if they have a generative self-esteem.
The Spiritual Gift of Encouragement
The gift of encouragement is that special quality of God in a person who has learned to listen to the heartthrob of God. They listen, take heed, are convicted, then they act. They have faith that their execution of God’s good seed will bear goodwill. And they will not give up easily. They are called to encourage, and they cannot fall back on that call without significant spiritual unrest.
One Salient Example
I have in mind one particular encourager; a young married lady with a sweet spirit and a little girl. Having diligently catalogued 365 days of gratitude, that next day she set about encouraging one hundred people over the next one hundred days. I guess anyone can do that, but this young lady had a particularly adept gift of identifying the positive nuances of people appreciatively. She seemed to have no trouble finding half a dozen or a dozen things that were of specific encouragement; things that, as I’d read, I’d say, “I can see that in that person, but why didn’t I notice it in them first?”
There is a great deal a community can learn from such a person.
Indeed, it is such a great blessing to any community to have a person or people like this empowered to ‘speak’ their spiritual gift of encouragement.
People who naturally see the cup as half full can be used by God as encouragers. They have a gift God wants to use in the building up of his servants and Kingdom. But, it takes a person who can see the beauty in people – and that’s a gift all its own.
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What is communicated through encouragement is safety.
When we have chosen to encourage someone we have chosen to accept them; rejection, as a force, is much further away. And whenever we encourage someone there is generally a payback in-kind, but that isn’t what those with the gift of encouragement do it for. They usually do it to see the light of delight flicker on for the other person.
When we have chosen to encourage someone, we have chosen to be an agent of God.
Employing the Languages of Encouragement
Choose to encourage someone today. Tonight, be the bearer of an encouraging word or action. Encourage someone by spending time with them. Give someone a hug. Empower them with a gift.
When we ensure our communication of love is warm, empathic, and genuine, it is an encouragement to the receiver; an untouchably tangible gift.
© 2014 S. J. Wickham.

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