So what is important and crucial in life? Pondering on this it is clear that what is important to me may not make the top ten list for someone else. Acknowledging and recognising that is perhaps crucial in any ministry. Yet what is crucial is how we make others feel. "People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel." Unknown
The Acts of the Apostles describes Barnabas as a 'good man, full of faith and the Holy Spirit'. He was born in Cyprus and died in Salamis in the 1st century. His Jewish parents called him, Joseph, but after selling all his property and joining the apostles in Jerusalem, he got a new name: Barnabas, meaning "a man of encouragement."
In our lives, we all have feelings of weakness and weariness - none of us like these circumstances. We do not enjoy such experiences. These periods of helplessness, powerlessness and vulnerability have removed all our strength and make us prone to despair and self-pity. In the midst of these real experiences, the culture that we live in aggravates the matter. We grew up in a culture where criticism is the rule. We have been traumatised by criticism. Even if we grew up in a very encouraging family, the world outside of our homes does not have encouragement as a way of life.
When we encourage, we do not have to be gushing about another. Or to be too patronising. Encouragement is a sincere affirmation. When we criticise, we look for what is negative and find it so easy to give others the benefit of our opinion. On the other hand, encouragement is seeing what is positive and good and expressing it as readily as the tendency to criticise that is always with us. Criticism is the fastest way to stop another person from doing wrong; encouragement is the fastest way to make another person expand their good work.
Encouragement is remembering. You see, when a good thing has happened like a little improvement or a small change, when we express them as words of encouragement, the little development becomes fixed in the mind of the listener, and thus the likelihood of repeated success becomes greater. It makes a person take the next step to a new additional process of growth.
Barnabas did the same thing. He encouraged and thus he built communities of faith. We are built-up by a culture of trust and of consolation. We need a new culture in the world of positive reinforcement. With encouragement, we seek what is more. After all, we were made, not to destroy, but to build people.
