Practicing Affirmation: God Centered Praise Of Those Who Are Not God

by Sam Crabtree

Loan a young person your keys. Or give him his own key. At a committee or board meeting, before moving on to the next agenda item, stop to commend those who worked on the previous item. Write a personal letter or note card that an employee can take home or put in a personnel file. Keep a supply of such blank note cards in your desk for just such a purpose. E-mails will do, but they are less likely to be pinned up on workspace walls or put in a portfolio. Commend the wisdom and helpfulness of a suggestion somebody has made, especially when the suggester has offered to be a part of a solution to a problem. Explain that what inspired you to do some good thing was the other person’s example. “I brought coffee cake for the office because I see how much the staff enjoys it when you consistently do thoughtful things.” Don’t talk down to people; talk up to them. Consider them better than you.“Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves”(Phil.2:3).“You probably already know this, but. . . .” Just as God decisively chose Paul in Acts 9, tell your spouse, “I chose you, and I still do.” An advantage adoptive parents have over biological parents is to say, “I chose you,” a strong affirmation— and the child cannot boast in it, because the child was not the decisive chooser. Write to children.An enthusiastic and thankful mother of some youngsters wrote me after I had first written her young sons, thanking them for their hospitality (G...