The lessons this past week have been on being an encourager, being faithful, committed, and honest. The first day’s lesson began with a story that really drove home to me how important it is to think ahead and ask the Lord to help me control my speech. Let me share that story from Mary’s Bible study with you:
“His mother was not home, but the young boy wanted to draw, so he got out the bottles of ink and enlisted his sister as a model. The young artist made an inky mess of his hands, clothes, table, and floor. Just as he was finishing his work, his mother returned. For a moment, she stood in the door and silently took in the scene. Then, instead of scolding him, she picked up the portrait and declared, ‘What a beautiful picture of your sister!’ and kissed him. Later in life, the great artist Benjamin West recounted, ‘With that kiss, I became a painter!’
It would have been so easy for that mother to focus on the mess or his impatience at not waiting for her assistance. Instead she affirmed him. With her encouragement, he gained the desire, confidence, and determination to become a great painter.”
Now, I don’t know about you, but that story convicts me to the very core of my soul. So often, I am not an encourager and very often I am not even nice. My focus is on me, my time and my desires, never thinking about how my words affect other people. This very week I found myself guilty of being the opposite of an encourager with someone I love very much. I have tried, over the years to learn to pick my battles—choose the hill that I want to die on, so to speak—yet I still find myself being far less than an encourager in many situations.
What about you? What would you have done if you had been the mother in the above story? How often are you an encourager to those with whom you have contact? Is your tongue used more often for building up or tearing down?
Let’s take to heart Hebrews 3: 13, ”Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” It is my renewed prayer that the Lord would muzzle my mouth and tame my tongue, bringing it under the control of the Holy Spirit. Will you join me in that prayer for yourself this week?
