Thoughts on Life

Encourage One Another

Compliments are a big deal to me. Although words of affirmation aren’t one of my top love languages I still love receiving words of encouragement and affirmation from others. I think all of us do if we’re honest.

Words can build up or they can tear down and we often don’t realise the length of impact our words can have, whether positive or negative. In fact, being a person who encourages others can go far in being a light to the world. People are attracted to positive, encouraging, joyful people.

In following the biblical principle of putting off something and putting on another to replace it, we should be replacing our negativity with positivity.

I don’t think that we should do this flippantly or thoughtlessly. There are easy compliments we can dish out such as “you look nice today” or “I like the way you did your hair” but those are universal compliments (as in they can be used for pretty much everyone you see in a day) and don’t normally stick with a person.

Instead we should focus on complimenting people in a way that encourages them and builds them up. Notice their caring attitude, their servant heart, their passion for God’s Word, etc.

It doesn’t even have to be a so called spiritual compliment. You can compliment people on their organisational skills, their attention to detail, their friendly and bubbly personality, their ability to focus on positivity in a negative world, and more.

That doesn’t mean you can’t tell people they look nice or have great hair, just that this is the very basics. We should be pushing to go above and beyond that in our compliment so we encourage others in who they are as people and how they display Christlikeness; not just encouraging them to continue putting effort into their appearance.

Encouraging others by truly looking for the things they work hard at and bringing it to attention can give someone that extra boost they needed that day. And you’ll often find that the things you encourage will be things that people choose to continue to better themselves in.

If you are looking for some ways to be a light in the world today, ditch that negativity and start complimenting others!

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