Holy Spirit

Each new year brings with it the urge to clear our closets and our lives of the clutter we’ve collected. We want to clean out the old and make way for the new! The new year is also the time for categorizing our habits and deciding which ones to toss out and which ones to carry forward. One I hope we all consider keeping is the habit of encouraging others.

The Greek word for encouragement is “parakaleo,” which means to call a person to your side in order to aid, assist, counsel, console, comfort, exhort and strengthen. It is a word that accurately describes the role of the Holy Spirit and the way the Spirit works through believers to reach others. Webster’s dictionary defines encourage, “to inspire, to renew or give hope.” And while those without a life of faith can be wonderful encouragers, of course, no one can encourage more effectively than the believer filled with the Spirit.

When we make sharing encouraging words a habit, it’s easier to always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have (I Peter 3:15 NIV). What kinds of words can we use to encourage others? Words that heal, words that help, and words from the heart.

Every time you listen to a friend’s grief over a marriage that is failing, the loss of a spouse, or a child that is sick you have a chance to encourage the oppressed (Isaiah 1:17) with words that heal. Just saying “I’m sorry” can penetrate the despair your friend is feeling. So can the words “I love you,” spoken over and over, and “I’ll always be here for you.” Words that heal.

Speaking words that help may be a habit that you aren’t even aware you have. When you offer to clean house for a sick neighbor, cook a meal, pick up the kids or baby sit, you are offering words that help. Let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching we read in Hebrews 10:25. You do that when you offer words that help make life easier for others.

The most encouraging words of all are words spoken from the heart. Those words the Spirit leads you to spontaneously share with people you know, and even with strangers.

Speaker and author Sandra Aldrich tells a wonderful story about some encouraging words she received when she was faced with adapting to single parenthood after her husband’s death. Still grieving for her husband, she decided to take a trip with her two children to give them all a diversion. But it didn’t go well. Her son was always running off, and her daughter shadowed her so closely she almost tripped over her at every turn. Finally getting her son in tow, she was standing in line with both kids at a restaurant wondering how she was ever going to manage as a single mother.

Just then an elderly, Spanish-speaking woman who had been observing Sandra and her children for awhile passed by them. Reaching out, she patted Sandra on the arm and in her halting English said, “You good mamma.” That’s all she said. “You good mamma.” And then she was gone.

Those few words of encouragement, spoken from the heart of one mother to another, sustained Sandra through her years of single parenthood and made such an impression on her that she included the story in a speech many years later.

Words that heal, words that help, and words from the heart. Sharing them with others is a habit worthy of the new year.

If a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then the journey to having a book you’ve written appear on your doorstep should begin with the first word, right? Actually, with The Hope of Glory: A Devotional Guide for Older Adults, it began long before the first word was written.

Back in 1999, the Lord placed on my heart the desire to do all I could do to connect older adults with their faith—or to introduce them for the first time to faith in Jesus Christ and the blessed assurance of eternal life that could be theirs. I was at a book group meeting and heard one friend ask another if she would be interested in facilitating a Bible study at an assisted living facility. She said no, she didn’t have time. Even though I only overheard the conversation, I felt the Holy Spirit tapping my shoulder and saying, “That was supposed to be for you.” I followed up with a phone call to the friend with the information a few days later, got in touch with the facility, and began a weekly Bible study with a fascinating group of residents there.

After about a year I realized I needed to devote more time to helping my mom and mother-in-law, so I stopped going. But by then the Lord had planted in my heart and mind the idea for devotional lessons directed to the aging population. I began working on the project as I had time, calling it The Hope of Glory after the verse in Colossians 1:27, Christ in you, the hope of glory. I tried shopping it around to publishers but didn’t get an acceptance, so it just joined other back-burner projects in my files. In fact, as my friend Merrily says, it’s possible I took it off the stove entirely!

But the Holy Spirit didn’t forget about it. In May, 2010, I began visiting my friend Denise in the assisted living facility where she had just moved. At first it was difficult for me to even enter the building, as it brought back so many memories of my mom and mother-in-law, both of whom had passed away. But I kept going back because of Denise, and I began to feel more comfortable there. One day I stopped to look at the activities calendar posted on the wall. I noticed there were no Bible studies listed. The Holy Spirit used that information to get my attention again.

A few days later I was leaving our church, which is almost across the street from the assisted living facility, and I heard the Spirit say, “Why don’t you just go over there and ask them if they need you?” So I did. I walked into the activities director’s office, introduced myself, told her where I went to church, and said, “Do you need someone to lead a Bible study or anything?” She smiled and said, “I left my card at your church, but I haven’t heard from anyone yet.” I got chills as we both realized God had sent me. Not only did I feel that I had a new assignment, I sensed the Lord not putting my writing project back on the stove, but rather of His taking it off a high shelf, blowing the dust off of it, and handing it to me saying, “Now, after all you’ve been through with your mom and mother-in-law, you are ready to finish this.”

Just weeks later I began volunteering, writing a new lesson for the class each week. Once I had 52 lessons, plus five more for special holidays, I began the search for a publisher again. The Hope of Glory: A Devotional Guide for Older Adults, was released by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas in March 2014. I’m not telling you all this to promote the book (although I’d love for you to see what it has to offer the elders you know and love), but to share two important lessons learned from the most drawn-out writing project of my life.

First, if God gives you an assignment, He won’t let you forget it. I hate to use the word “nag” in relation to the Holy Spirit, so let’s call it “encouragement that can feel like nagging!” Second, the completion of this book should reassure us all that God has not forgotten the older adults among us. In fact, His heart burns with love for them, and He sends His people to minister to them and share the life-saving truth of the gospel with them.

That’s why I pray that seeing the book in print on my doorstep, at long last, is not the end of this journey. I pray it’s the beginning of how the Lord will use The Hope of Glory to accomplish His purposes. My job now is to stay out of His way.

An Encouraging Word

The End of the Journey…or the Beginning?