Cultivate Life

Cultivate Life

Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up.

Proverbs 12:25 NIV

Everyone longs for affirmation and encouragement. With it, most people grow and thrive. Without it, spirits wither. Do you use encouragement to cultivate life and growth in the people around you? Or do you relegate the act of encouraging others to people you assume God has given the gift of encouragement?

The truth is that God instructs every one of us to “encourage one another daily” (Hebrews 3:13 NIV, emphasis added).What does it mean to encourage and how do we apply it? This Key will look at these questions and more.

The Greek word translated encourage is parakaleo, also meaning to comfort, exhort, invite and call near. Part of encouragement is to exhort others to follow the Lord and live holy lives. However, most people are better at pointing out the negatives in others’ lives, so in this Key we will focus on the positives of encouraging others.

When my son Daniel was born with multiple problems, he was in and out of the hospital—mostly in—for his first three months. Wearily I cared for my three-year-old Jonathan after driving an hour or two each way to and from the hospital through the snarled Southern California traffic. Hopelessly I tried to keep up with housework and meals.

God sent encouragement from a woman I had only briefly met named Susie. She was a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators, with whom we also served. She set up meals for us three times a week, finding different people to make them and bring them to us. She also arranged for people to care for Jonathan when I was at the hospital and coordinated other help, like getting our clothes washed. Susie did all this for over three months. What a blessing! What an encouragement! I don’t know how I could have done it without her help.

Ask the Lord to show you who needs your encouragement today and how you can give it. God’s Design for Community teaches you practical ways to cultivate life in others.

Excerpted from God’s Design for Community Online Course. It is filled with powerful, biblical principles that will empower you to transform all your relationships and communities.

Here is what people are saying about this material:

“I really believe this material has His anointing and is the best training tool I’ve seen for our kind of people. I really believe in it.” Duane,  missionary in Thailand

“Talk is golden and now Gaylyn Williams has unlocked the communication vault. You will never be able to walk the walk if you can’t talk the talk! This course by Gaylyn Williams will give you the tools to become a gold-medal-winning people person.” Mark Walters, author

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