The Unexpected Multiplication of Encouragement

How a few simple words make a large impact

This one has been sitting in my drafts for a few months, but I never finished the last paragraph until now lol, and I still didn’t finish the long piece I mentioned in the paragraph below…

Last weekend at my church, the message was on the gift of encouragement. It was great, and got me thinking about how I’ve seen the impact of encouragement in my life as well as others I’ve been around. I’ve been working on a longer piece that’s going to take some time, so I wanted to write a brief reflection on encouragement.

I am really afraid of heights. But not only that, I’ve had an irrational fear of second stories. This fear started because I was playing in my family’s old barn with a friend, and the floor collapsed. We weren’t hurt terribly, but it left me with a fear of heights and, specifically, floors caving in. I know… It’s a weird fear, but I’ve got to own it. One year, when I was at camp, I had to face this fear because I was assigned to the rockwall activity for the week.

I remember the first day I showed up for the activity, I think I tried climbing one time. I got maybe two feet off the ground, and my legs began to uncontrollably shake. The leaders cheered me on, and I imagine I gave up there for the day. But eventually over the week and in large part do to the encouragement of the leaders, I made it to the top of the easy side of the wall. Maybe I got better at climbing throughout the week, but what was most likely the case, I grew in confidence through the constant encouragement of the leaders and campers around me. I was able to overcome a fear and do what I thought was impossible. I doubt that if I were on my own for a week and tried climbing the wall day over day, I would have made it to the top. It was the encouragement of others that unlocked that potential.

I’ve seen this encouragement at work in so many other ways in my own life. Last year, I ran two half-marathons (if you add them up, I can maybe claim I did a full one, with a 6-month break). They were radically different experiences. The first one was in London, and the streets were packed with people cheering the runners on. I remember facing a difficult hill and wanting to walk, but then a lady on the street called out, “Keith, you’ve got this!” They took time to read my name and cheer me on. I ended up finishing that race and beating my goal by 20 minutes. The next race I did there was far fewer people out, and I noticed the lack of encouragement. It felt much more difficult to finish and work up energy when I was tired. In the long stretches where I felt like giving up, there wasn’t anyone to cheer me on to keep going.

The power of people’s words and simple encouragement yielded incredible results; it unlocked possibilities that wouldn’t have been possible without that encouragement. A reason I love camp is that I get to see kids who have similar stories to mine. They face fear when it comes to an activity like the rockwall, but their cabinmates and leaders are there to cheer them on. Sometimes they make it to the top, sometimes they take the one step they didn’t believe they could.

I continue to see this impact of encouragement every year at camp in the growth of the leaders as well. When asked about one of my favourite parts, I usually say being able to see team members do something that they were uncomfortable with at the start of the summer, or a year past. Whether it’s participating and putting themselves out there in campfire, or growing in faith and leading others in that. I doubt that they just began to do that on their own, but that other leaders around them spoke encouraging words that led to that growth and confidence to challenge themselves. They’ve created a culture of encouragement that has helped them grow and do what they thought was impossible.

I believe God uses our encouragement to help bring change in other people’s lives. When we take time to give meaningful words of encouragement, the Spirit can use that to work deeply in another’s life. When I reflect on what I now see as my gifts and talents, I have grown in them because others saw those potentials and encouraged me. God has used others greatly to encourage me along my journey, and it really is a simple way we can be part of another’s journey.

How might God be calling you to be His voice in another’s life through words of encouragement?