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

by Sam Crabtree

See through the other person’s ears. Just because we criticize somebody doesn’t mean we’re showing disrespect; but if criticism continues to be the pattern from us, the fact that we don’t mean it as disrespect doesn’t mean it won’t be taken as disrespect and felt as disrespect and hinder our relationship with that person just as disrespect would. Tone of voice is a sweetener or killer.Take your pick.(See appendix 2, a letter to a mother asking about the tone of voice in her home.) Tone of voice can undercut affirmations being verbalized, canceling them. Tuning you out is not necessarily conscious or intentional on the part of others. Be alert for unintended put-downs: constant chipping, nit-picking, implying nothing’s ever good enough, etc. Such negativity contradicts a believer’s effort to be a testimony to unbelievers. Put-downs are off-putting to the one being put down and to onlookers as well. Check your motives for correcting. When you correct, whose agenda are you following? Are your corrections driven by your own preferences, your own disappointments and frustrations? Or are your corrections driven by what God desires for each person? Would other godly people confirm the God-centeredness of your corrections and the authenticity of the love that is motivating you? Listen before leaping. Be swift to hear, slow to speak. Listening affirms the person to whom we wish to speak, the person we want to have heard us. Not only that, but our active, patient listening models wh...

increase in unscrupulous win-at-any-cost attitudes and behaviors. If we affirm things like Scripture memory and serving others less than we affirm dance lessons or soccer performance, we may discover a corresponding set of values and priorities developing in the life of the affirmed. Oh, the mercy of God shown to those who are about to give up on ...

“Ways to Affirm Difficult People”),

God designed words to be so powerful that speech brought creation into being: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host” (Ps. 33:6); “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Heb. 11:3).

And like water to a dry garden, speech has the strange and wonderful power to penetrate the soul and bring refreshment.A good word overcomes anxiety:“Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad” (Prov. 12:25).

100 Ideas

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...