A lot of the time all people need to prosper is a little encouragement

The more I relate with a humanity reaching out for support, the more I see that most people prosper well with their confidence simply restored.

We all struggle with confidence from time to time, well, except for those who have an abundance of false confidence.  The truth is we all do well when the world is friendly toward us, when there’s support enough to succeed, when there are an absence of threats.

Think of those times in your life when you felt content and comfortable with the people around you.  Somehow it made even challenging circumstances a bit more doable.

If we have the spirit of kindness, of patience, and of gentleness about us, where we exist to be a friend to the next person—whoever they are, whatever they believe, however they look, no matter how they behave—we exist to be a blessing.  This is what it is to be a Christian.

(Christians are a misunderstood lot.  Christians aren’t perfect and they aren’t even meant to be bigoted and judgmental, but they are supposed to be committed to living Jesus’ way of love, a.k.a. kindness, patience, gentleness, etc.)

It’s a pretty simple remit for a person living Jesus’ way: make friends with people by speaking the truth in love, and one of the most urgent truths Jesus followers are to speak in this world are encouragements that bring Jesus’ life into those who are disheartened by life.

Most paradoxically, we ‘speak’ these encouragements more through non-verbal presence of walking in friendship with people than actually talking a lot.

Being people infused by a hope that cannot be conquered—even though we might genuinely struggle in our own lives—we see others as God sees them; they’re Ten-out-of-Ten.

That’s right, it’s our job to see the beauty in people that they may not even see themselves.

When we’ve encouraged another person to see what God sees in themselves, we see them prosper, and we begin to understand how close just about everyone is to living their best life.

Okay, we don’t live this life at all perfectly, and many of our lives are littered with brokenness, but at least we bear that hope in our hearts that is FOR others.

This isn’t just a wishy-washy overly optimistic view of people and life.  It’s rooted and established in the eternal concepts of a love that always wins... Ultimately.