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Dalton
Roberts |
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Last week I had fun telling you that no one will take your advice but go ahead and give it anyway because it makes you feel good. While it is true that few people will take our counsel, Mike Mosier emails me that they do need our encouragement. Mike knows. He has lived a long time with heart problems and is alive today due to a heart transplant, Despite these severe health challenges, he amazes me with his positive outlook and his willingness to share with others an indomitable faith in the future. He writes, “We all have the need to be needed. Giving advice, whether the receiving ends take it or not, helps us with that need. However, I’ve discovered some news no less great. After we get a certain age we can often tell who will listen and who won’t. As a music teacher I find more need to give encouragement than advice. We need to be needed and there will always be someone somewhere who will need us.” Some advice-givers may just be flexing their egos but many have a sincere desire to share. Their advice stems from a desire to be needed and to be of service and both are worthy motivations. Here is the ludicrous thing: when our true desire is to give encouragement, it opens people to trust us enough to be open to advice. Yes, it is rare but the reason it is rare is that we prefer to give advice more than encouragement. The gift of encouragement is one of the seldom-sought gifts or life callings. My mother was an encourager. She called herself an exhorter. Everyone who came into her life got a strong dose of encouragement. She made you feel able and worthy. One day I saw how important is the work of encouragers. I was reading Paul’s letter on spiritual gifts (I. Cor 12) and noticed he lists the gift of “helps” (encourages) right up there with all the spectacular gifts like healing, working miracles and discerning spirits. Think back on the lives of the encouragers you have known and you will quickly realize they impact more lives than some of those with the more flamboyant gifts. There are several good things about using your gift of encouragement. One is that the field is not crowded. People like the more flashy and headline-grabbing gifts like discernment or preaching. One of the most popular new shows on TV is about “psychic detectives” who tune into criminals and predict what they will do or have done. It’s easier to go into a trance than to open yourself to a hurting person. It’s easier to exercise your lungs than your heart Another good thing about seeking the gift of encouragement is that you can grow and learn and get better at it the longer you do it. Each time you are able to encourage a person out of their emotional quicksand, you pick up a technique that works. You can also take courses in practical psychology, guidance and counseling. We need to understand one thing clearly: there is a big difference between giving advice and encouraging. Giving advice places your attention on yourself and what you think you know. No matter how objective we try to be a lot of ego gets into our advice giving. Encouraging requires that we focus on the other person. There is a world of difference between these two attitudes. In encouragement we have to step into the other persons moccasins, to borrow an old Indian phrase. We have to identify with their situation so deeply that we see through their eyes and feel with their heart. Then, strangely, we have to step outside their emotional blender to gather something practical and usable to encourage them through the situation. It is demanding work requiring the union of the heart and the mind. The field of encouragement is wide open for anyone who desires to receive the humble gift of “helps.”
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