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| “The lips of the righteous nourish many, but fools die for lack of judgment.” |
| —Proverbs 10:21 |
Have you ever felt badly about yourself only to have someone, who doesn’t know how you’re feeling, offer words of encouragement, even praise?
I have spent most of my life generally feeling badly about myself. Before you jump to conclusions and suggest I seek professional help, I’ve done that and found that so-called “help” was a flop. (I’ve written about my experience in other blog posts.)
My study of Psychology has allowed me to come to an understanding of the root of these feelings of inadequacy and failure. And, I have compensated for them all my life by becoming a relatively high achiever. But, in the deep recesses of my heart, I still have vestiges of these lifelong feelings.
On occasion, when I have felt particularly bad about myself, God has graciously sent someone across my pathway to speak a word of encouragement without even knowing how I was feeling about myself. Such words always bring a smile to my face and lift my spirits. That’s the power of nourishing words.
King Solomon understood how important a kind word can be to someone in need. Notice what he wrote, as recorded in Proverbs 10:21:
The lips of the righteous nourish many, but fools die for lack of judgment.
It’s true that when we speak words of encouragement and kindness to other people, we provide nourishment for their souls. That’s why we should never withhold our words of genuine appreciation. It is one of the opportunities that God gives us to show His love to others and to follow in the footsteps of His precious Son, Jesus.
Over the years, perhaps because I have felt about myself the way I do, I have learned to speak as many kind words to others as possible. I can even remember the first time I felt God nudging me to do so.
My dearly and deeply loved sister-in-law, now home with the Lord, was a wonderful, multi-talented artist. She was a kind person, a devoted wife, a loving mother, and was a truly beautiful person. But, I believe that she harbored a sense that she wasn’t quite as worthy as other people. I think she truly thought that she wasn’t as smart as other people. After high school graduation, she had gone one year to art school, but had not attended college.
Now, in actual fact, she was a very intelligent woman—far more intelligent than many of the people to which she may have compared herself. Her intelligence was expressed beautifully in her amazing artistic creations. But, I’m quite certain she never fully realized how intelligent she was. Her lack of formal education was not a hindrance in any way to her creativity and excellence expressed in her art.
Almost 50 years ago, I once overheard her remark about how dumb she felt. Soon after that, when I was alone in the same room with her, I had an overwhelming sense from God that I needed to say something that I had long felt. So, I said to her, in a very quiet voice, that I was so proud of her, of her art, of her role as a mom, of the way she was lovingly raising her children, of her obvious love and devotion to her husband, and of the way she treated everyone with such kindness.
I think my words probably embarrassed her a bit. She didn’t quite know what to say to me in response. But, I knew that I had been obedient to God in speaking the words He had prompted me to say. And, I learned a very valuable lesson that day. I learned that speaking nourishing words is one of the things God expects us, as His ambassadors, to do in this world.
As we begin a new day, let’s consider the opportunities that God may give us to speak words of encouragement to others. Let’s not hold back when God nudges us to say a word that might lift someone’s spirit—not words of false praise, but genuine words that express the feelings in our hearts toward that person.
We may never know how important our words of kindness might be to someone in need. And, we may never know how speaking such words may very well be one of God’s ways of bringing healing to our own needy hearts.
