Encouraging and Sayings About It

Encouraging others is a great gift…you mainly realize it when you need encouragement yourself.

When I look back in my life, the worst discouragement valleys have been because of a lack of knowledge. I simply did not know what certain things meant until I met them "face to face".

I have heard of spiritual war for instance, but I didn’t really know what it meant until I had the chance to "taste" it, it is the worst taste ever…until I also tasted the sweet victory; however, I learned the lesson the hard way. I only found out about what I have been through later on, when I saw that many Christian faith titans have been there, done that. I didn’t know!

Good old Job didn’t know why he would have to go through such misery when he actually was a good person, obeying God’s law in all his ways. God Himself was proud of Job too! Yet…he’s been through hell…all his children died the same day, he lost all his possessions the same day – and he was rich! On top of that, he became very ill, fighting a painful disease. From being highly respected he ended up totally ignored in society.

Even if not all of us will ever go through what Job had to deal with, there is this pattern that emerges from the whole Bible: before praise there is the sufferance valley. Oh and this valley seems so long, doesn’t it? When I think back to Joseph, he has lost 2 years in prison being innocent! What a waste of time I’d say! Precious youth years in a prison, how could that benefit him? It obviously has, since he became the most important man in Egypt.

To be able to weight the real value of people, one has to go through many experiences that wash away the send and mud and let the real values shine. For instance, it is not the number of diplomas you have gathered that give your real value; your value is given by your character…remember, integrity cannot be learned in school. No school you might attend can give you a diploma to attest your integrity.

Therefore the character needs to be tested, it is in hardships that we see who we really are. We don’t even know ourselves before we realize we’ve achieved what we didn’t think we could. That’s why we need to know where we stand, we need to realize how dependent we actually are on God, and we need to know that we can’t even move without Him. We have a loving Creator "God is love", and just as a parent will not let his child tough the hot stove, because of love, the same way, God in His wisdom cannot fulfill all our requests all the time. He is working in our interest anyway!

It is not difficult to theoretically accept that, but it is the experience that proves it right, testifying that indeed God worked things for the better.

Here are some words of wisdom about the importance of encouragement:

"The more you care, the stronger you can be." -- Jim Rohn

"How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these." George Washington Carver

"Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push - a smile. A word of optimism and hope, a 'you can do it!' when things are tough." Richard De Vos

"Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you." William Arthur Ward

"A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success"

"Nine tenths of education is encouragement." Anatole France (French Writer, member of the French Academy and Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921, 1844-1924)

"Taking an interest in what others are thinking and doing is often a much more powerful form of encouragement than praise" Robert Martin

"The more I encourage my child to think for himself, the more he will care what I think"

"Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers"