“As soon as I pray, you answer me; you encourage me by giving me strength.” Psalm 138:3

“If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.” Romans 12:8

Affirm according to Webster includes in it’s list of Verb definitions: to support (someone) by giving approval, recognition, or encouragement:

In 1992 a book was written by a man named Gary Chapman.

The most recent iteration was published in 2010. The book is called The 5 Love Languages.

If you don’t know what they are according to the book, I’ll give them to you here.

• Words of Affirmation

• Quality Time

• Receiving Gifts

• Acts of Service

• Physical Touch

I’d like to write out my thoughts today on Words of Affirmation or more loosely, encouragement.

Some, when they take the initial test to determine their love language, will find they are on the border between two.

Whenever I have tested for this, I always come down to Words of Affirmation. Always. And not only do I come down on Words of Affirmation, if you could score 1 million points on it, all 1 million would be placed in the column of Affirmation.

“Thank you so much for taking care of repairing my car, I am thankful you took care of it for me” - To me, this is an example of Appreciation.

“You know, not everyone is so quick to tackle problems and not only that, is gifted mechanically. You possess both qualities and put them to good use helping others around you. That’s a great trait and it really blesses a lot of people”. -To me, this is an example of Affirmation.

There are 92 mentions of the word encourage in the bible. Encouragement is something we each need every day. Some, however, like me, are in more dire need of it.

It’s a lifeline to keep going.

Can I live without hearing a good word from a trusted human? Sure. I can.

Does it motivate me to keep going, to keep giving, to keep pushing ahead even if I may not feel like it on a given day, when I do get a word or two of affirmation…not appreciation, but affirmation? Heck yeah. It’s like a super jolt. I feel like a Marvel Superhero that’s been energized to continue on, do better, do more.

In my time on earth, I have observed a bit of a conundrum related to this 5 Love Languages thing.

It’s this.

We tend to give out and apply the love language WE are most highly desiring.

Example.

In every “spiritual gift” test I have ever taken, my top gift is usually Exhortation, followed by Leadership, then Wisdom.

Exhort defined is to urge, advise, or caution earnestly; admonish urgently or to give urgent advice, recommendations, or warnings

Other words recommended for exhort are encourage, spur, press, goad.

If you are reading this and know me at all, you know that it’s almost annoyingly true that this defines who I am.

Dishing out words of encouragement or words of affirmation, not just appreciation, come very, very naturally to me. I don’t even need to think much about it in doing so. This is a gift from the Lord, for sure. To do it with such ease and fluidity has nothing at all to do with any training I’ve ever had. It’s just the way I am made.

As such, I do this all the time with my kids and even with my wife. When I see someone is very down, or needs some kind of motivation or direction, it’s not difficult at all to find some kind of sincere affirmative statement or exhortation to utter.

And I do so.

HOWEVER, for those who’s love language is NOT words of affirmation these encouragements do little good.

Say, for example, ones language is Quality Time, like my daughter Elise or my son Ed? Well, while they may appreciate my affirming them, they feel infinitely more important, loved, and affirmed if I make time to take them to lunch or a breakfast, or spend time on the trail in the mountains.

If you observe others carefully, you can find, almost through just watching, what their personal love language is. If someone is prone to giving thoughtful, meaningful little gifts, they are likely Receiving Gifts.

My wife is like that. She has an amazing gift in giving gifts. She’s a wonder woman in this regard. Her mother is like that. I dated a woman like that.

Joelle LOVES receiving packages addressed to her in the mail or at the door. If I send her mother so much as a hand written card, she’ll talk about it for a week. One time when picking up that woman I dated I stopped and picked up a drink at a coffee shop for her without mentioning it. She almost passed out with excitement I had done so. I can’t relate to any of these reactions, but that’s because I don’t care all that much about getting gifts.

I want to encourage you today if you are in relationships at all, and are interested in improving them, consider that of which I write.

It takes works to be in relationships. They are hard.

They can, however, make life more enjoyable.

Here’s an example from my own marriage.

My wife is 100% Italian. In her culture, it seems pretty normal to me they poke at and make fun of each other. She does that with me regularly. She makes up words quite often and her word for this is “razzing” with me.

This has been good for me in some respect, in others bad.

Here’s how.

Good. I grew up with parents who were overly sensitive to any criticism at all. Typical, frankly, of the creative types, both of which my parents are. This trait carried over and I picked it up. Now, having a wife who tends to poke at me pretty consistently it has (joking or no), over the 12 years we’ve been married, helped me to shrug it off, not take myself quite as seriously, and ignore it.

Bad. I don’t feel affirmed much in our relationship. This creates a dangerous dynamic. Given my main Love Language is Words of Affirmation, to not have it met in a significant relationship is problematic to say the least. This is not good for any of us as humans.

When a human being feels less than loved, it’s easy for darkness to creep in, take root, and work it’s slow boil. Like the boiling of a frog in water, slowly heating up, he knows not the death he faces and never hops out.

I say this to say only that if you are in meaningful relationships, those in your life need to be loved in a way around which their mind can wrap.

I want to stress that it’s vitally important that we know the “language” our most significant people understand and apply it with them as best we can. We ignore it at our own peril. I believe the scripture even would lean toward this as it exhorts us to encourage each other.

I’ve known a few people, actually a number of them, who’s spouses eventually left them after years and years of trying in any way they could to express to their husband or wife that they need “X” while their spouses discounted it, attempted to marginalize it, or simply ignored it. An emotional affair with another is the least problematic in such cases, divorce being the worst outcome. Magically, (when it is generally too late) the spouse being left behind suddenly becomes uber-anxious and enthusiastic to find a way to meet the unmet needs. In the cases I have observed, this was exactly how it played out.

Too little too late.

Coming back to Elise for a moment, I suspect the reason she prefers to spend time, even if it seems unproductive and uneventful, with those she loves is in large part due to the fact that from the time she could walk and hold my hand, we would take Saturday’s and go to The Flap Jack Shack in Lansing for breakfast. Just she and dad. Her sitting across from me, 2, maybe 3 years old, nose barely above the table, little curly blond hair flopping around as she would talk (and talk) and tell me all her stories.

In my opinion, the patterns of what we need and how we feel loved are set very early in our lives.

It can be from a positive angle, like the example with my daughter. It can also be set from a negative situation when someone goes without something growing up, say, physical touch demonstrations of love.

In any event, regardless of all this, I dare say every one of us needs to be encouraged at times. Not appreciated, encouraged.

I hope my thoughts on this matter gives someone pause to consider how they need to feel loved and admired, but more importantly, how those around us might need to be encouraged and affirmed.

We live in an upside down world right now where evil, dysfunction, and madness is called good and promoted while good and moral thinking and talk is considered absurd, evil, and harmful.

Everyone needs to hear HONEST and SINCERE words of admiration. Not the “Everyone deserves a trophy” kind. But legitimate, sincere, honest admiration.

I would encourage you to find out how you feel loved and do your level best to express these areas to your spouse if you’re married. If they are dropping the ball, it may be because they simply don’t know. They at least deserve a chance to fix it and they will only know how to if you TELL THEM.

I’ve seen too many relationships go south in my years as a florist. Too many that, more than likely, didn’t need to.

“The words of the godly encourage many…” Proverbs 10:21

talk soon,

rob