January 29, 2010
The Gift of Encouragement
Since the beginning of the year I’ve been writing a newsletter for our church. The main article each week is a mini-biography of a member of the congregation and it has proven to be a great tool for getting us acquainted with one another. I was a little caught off guard last Sunday when one of our senior citizens said, “I like these. You’re doing a damn good job!” Stifling a laugh I graciously accepted her compliment. “…in Christ we who are many form one body…If a man’s gift is…encouraging, let him encourage…” (Romans 12:4-8a NIV)
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Gail;
-----Encouragement is a big thing. Yes, it is big in importance, but I wish to address its breadth of scope. Paul tells the Thessalonians to encourage and build one another up (I Thess 5:11). I like the link he makes between encouragement and edification. At I Cor 14:3 he writes of “...up building and encouragement and consolation...” again linking encouragement with edification and adding consolation. Edification is an addition to the dimension of a person’s life whether in knowledge and attitude, emotion and feeling, or simply in physical comfort and provision. They all build up. Consolation is also a form of up building. But it is done in recognition of the impossibility of adding what is missing, and therefore seeks both to promote acceptance of an unchangeable condition and inspire the consideration of other options. Edification is the product of both forms of encouragement.
-----Although teaching, preaching, contributing, etc. edify, they do so by making specific additions of thoughts and ideas, meaning and feelings, and physical goods. Encouragement makes addition to a more basic level of the soul where confidence, hope, faith, and such are the inner strength of our impetus to feel and think and do things. Your sister in the Lord certainly added to the encouragement of your industry and generativity. And this is commonly the area of encouragement given in the church.
-----But the gift of encouragement is broader in scope for reaching even deeper areas of the soul. Erik Erikson, a Pulitzer-prize winning psychologist of the mid-twentieth century, theorized eight dichotomies of the human soul. I don’t find great credence in the thinking of psychologists, but Erikson’s theory suffers the least by the pruning of the Word. As pruned: 1) basic trust/basic mistrust - Can I trust others? Can I trust God? Or can’t I? 2) autonomy/shame and doubt - Can I do what God gives into my control? Or can’t I? 3) initiative/guilt - Do I do those things? Or don’t I? 4) industry/inferiority - Am I competent at doing what I do? Or am I not? 5) identity/role diffusion - What must I do and be? Or do I even know? 6) intimacy/isolation - Do I with others? Or do I alone? 7) generativity/stagnation - Is what I am doing beneficially effecting others? Or not? 8) integrity/despair - Is what I am doing good and godly? Or not? We intuitively sense where people are strong and weak, and our encouragement rather automatically flows there either to build up or to console. Most of us really don’t even think about it.
-----Though we are all more complete or incomplete in each of these areas, no one is totally one or the other. I believe the call for edification or consolation for any given situation is noteworthy, because the understanding and acceptance of strength and weakness in each of these eight areas mixes up a brew of virtue and ability particular to that area: 1) hope 2) will 3) purpose 4) competence 5) faithfulness 6) love 7) care and concern 8) wisdom. Being just a polishing up of a secular psychologist’s theory, none of this is necessary knowledge for the child with the gift of encouragement. This gift from the Spirit naturally finds an appropriate focus for whoever is in its company, and up building from it happens even without our awareness. Through encouragement the holes and tangles in our inner selves are continuously stitched and combed by each other, subtly bolstering all the attributes of our new lives and generating more impetus to both do and abide.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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