Everyone Needs Encouragement

I recently read an article about a teacher who went to a funeral for one of her former students. At the funeral, someone read a short story about what they found in this person’s wallet. It was an assignment the teacher had given her students a long time ago asking students to write something good about every student. The man who had died had carried this paper in his wallet all his life. After the service, some of this teacher’s students met for a meal, and while eating, many of them shared that they, too, still carried that assignment. This teacher was astonished that this simple act of saying something good about each student had meant so much to them.

When Abraham Lincoln was shot in 1865, his pockets contained eight newspaper clippings that praised him and his policies.  Everyone needs encouragement! President Lincoln was a great leader, but even great leaders need to hear positive feedback. Students in school often worry about what others think of them, and they especially need to be encouraged.

Who do you know that needs encouragement? Everyone! There is not one person you know that is confident enough to not need encouragement. We’re all one failure, snide comment, or bad hair day away from self-doubt. Romans 15:2 tells us to obey God’s command to “please our neighbors for their good, to build them up.”

We all need to take a class with this teacher who told her students to write something good about every student in the room. We’d all be carrying notes in our pockets when we die because these words would mean so much to us. If we’d all do this, we’d be more like Jesus, who “did not please himself” but lived for others. (Romans 15:3)

Romans 15:2 – “Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up.”

By the Rev. Tommy Herndon
Image: Canva