Encourage One Another

The season of Advent has begun!  On Sunday, we began the spiritual preparation process for Jesus’ birth in our hearts this Christmas.  As I have been reflecting on the season and perhaps because this year Advent began on my birthday I started to really dig into the spiritual gift of exhortation. The many expressions of love I received all weekend (due to the simple fact that my birth makes people happy (wink)) brought to mind two verses: “encourage one another and build each other up” and “exhort one another every day.”  The foundation of our faith is love, and love without works is dead...  God seriously is amazing, He not only tells us to love one another He shows and tells us how.  One way to really help one another is through exhortation- building each other up by constantly making people feel valuable.  Yet, some of us are so clueless or this gift of building each other up is not our strongest charism.  Thus, the following are some examples of ways that you can build your brothers and sisters in Christ:

• Love is impartial, Love Everyone: This means that you don’t love just to impress the person who you have feelings for or those you are close to, but all of God’s family.
• Be Careful with People- Take care in how you treat them and how you speak to them.  Are your actions and tone showing them they are precious to you?
• Listen- if you listen carefully they will tell you things that are important to them and then do those things to show you care.
• Compliment- and never magnify their faults.  Tell people verbally that they are important to you and that you value them by giving them compliments. Men and women - we both love to get occasional compliments. Practice saying something positive to at least one person every day and before you know it – you will be a natural at building people up.

• Be a Blessing- Through your words and actions share God’s love with others.  My mom always asks God to place people in her path who He wants her to bless on that day- and believe me God never fails.
• Pray for them- pray for others' needs, for their spiritual growth and for anything else the Holy Spirit leads you to.  And occasionally let them know you are praying for them- there’s nothing I love more than to learn someone has been praying for me.  A few Christmases ago my mom got really sick and it was a really trying holiday time for me. When I went to a Cursillo retreat and found out that all these people had been praying for me – I cried because though I had felt a divide between God and myself – all these prayer angels had been praying for me during a time that I REALLY needed intercession.
• Return emails, texts and calls promptly.
• Ask Questions- People generally love to talk about themselves and when you ask questions you are showing the other person that you are interested in them and in their lives.  If you are bad at asking questions (like me) practice and look for some universal prompts you can memorize.  There are these great table topic question games that can help in this area (wink). 

• Remember birthdays and anniversaries- nowadays with social media it’s easy for you to wish someone a Happy Birthday or congratulate them on their special occasion.
• Respond to Tragedy- Ask for how they are doing and follow up.  This is a great time to share that you are praying for them.
• Hugs! We all need to be touched and what better way than with a warm hug, yum!
• Use all the resources you have to bless others.  I have a very active Facebook page that I use to show others that I care.  On Facebook I wish everyone a happy birthday, I acknowledge their comments by liking them or commenting back – exhortation is that simple and easy!

Remember that the world discourages and tries to destroy us; but, when we come together and build each other- when we make others feel worthy and appreciated we are shinning the light of God.   We are called as followers of Christ to Christify the world do so by being a blessing wherever you go.