Candid Conversations: How To Be An Encourager | Joyce Meyer
Candid Conversations: How To Be An Encourager | Joyce Meyer
Join Joyce Meyer as she shares the importance of encouragement and how to become effective encouragers in our daily lives. From practical tips to spiritual insights, discover how a simple word of encouragement can make a profound difference. Let’s learn together how to uplift others and ourselves in this journey of faith and growth.
Joyce Meyer, one of the world’s leading practical Bible teachers and New York Times best-selling author, shares encouragement and advice to help us enjoy our daily lives.
With a heart to share Christ and love people, Joyce’s messages help people in all walks of life to grow in their faith, learn to study the Bible, find healing from the wounds of life, get answers to life’s questions and encounter the love of God in a powerful way.
Joyce, we’re gonna do something that everyone is going to love today because we are going to be encouragers.
Oh, alright. Yes. Everybody needs that, but we’re gonna talk about how to be an encourager.
There are practical things, and there are things not to do.
And I think we all need some encouragement to be an encourager. Yeah.
So first of all, tell me why it’s so important that that’s kind of a part of what we do and who we are?
Well, everybody needs encouragement to keep them going no matter what you’re doing.
No matter how long you’ve been doing it, encouragement is kinda like getting fuel in your automobile.
Yeah.
It’s like When people work hard, they get to the point where they’re kinda running on fumes, and it’s amazing how just a word of encouragement.
Sometimes from just the right person can really make a difference in your life.
And I think it’s good to talk about the fact that not everybody is a natural encourager.
Some people have the gift of encouragement.
It’s actually one of the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives.
And I will be honest and say that I would not be a natural encourager, but I have learned how be.
Mhmm. And so now it is very natural for me. Yeah.
So if you feel like, well, that’s just not me, don’t Don’t just stop at that and take that as an excuse, but it I mean, it’s all over the Bible that we’re to encourage one another.
It it keeps people going. It gives them the energy not to quit.
Sometimes you just need to encourage somebody not to quit.
Sometimes you need to encourage somebody to step out in faith and do something that they’ve never done before.
Sometimes you need to encourage somebody when they’re sick by telling them a story of, you know, another healing or a miracle that you know about.
And, Encouragement just really is very, very important. Would you say that you’re a natural encourager?
Yeah. I’m That’s such a good question.
I think naturally I am an encourager, and that’s definitely a huge desire that god has put in me.
In fact, one of my life verses is talking about encouraging people, let their joy in Christ Jesus overflow Right.
On account of my being with them.
So I know god has put that in me, but I’ll tell you what happens is everything else sometimes, um, kind of stifles that.
Right.
And whether it’s circumstances in your own life or busyness
Right.
Or even, you know, I had to fix this problem.
Right.
So I find that being an encourager sometimes disappears.
Right.
But I need to stir it up. I need to make sure that I focus on it.
And and also when even when you have to tell someone something hard, it doesn’t mean you can’t encourage them along the way.
In fact, it’s a very important part of it.
It’s not just this one bad thing because you’re a you’re a whole package.
Right. I think it’s important to even start with encouragement. You know?
And I I have found that it encourages people.
When I need to correct them, if I tell them something that I’ve done wrong. Yeah.
That helps encourage them.
But
so how do you encourage people? Really, the Holy Spirit is the comforter and the encourager.
He’s in us if we’re believers.
And if you really pay attention, you think about things, about people, like, oh, that color looks really good on her or, you know, your hair looks really nice today.
So often god puts things in our heart, but then we don’t take that step to let them come out of our mouth.
Mhmm.
And I have challenged people over the last few years to make it a goal to put at least a smile on three people’s faces every day.
Oh, that’s a great idea.
And just as a goal. I mean, you can do more than that.
But, you know, make at least three people smile today. Do something to make them happy.
And encouragement is a great way to do that. Yeah.
And I think too, it’s important in your family.
Like people that you live in the house with sometimes you just forget that they need encouragement.
That’s true.
But I wonder how many marriages that ended in divorce would not have ended in divorce if the couple would simply have encouraged one another more instead of just finding fault.
Yeah. And sometimes those are the people that get the worst of us.
Right.
Be because, you know, they’re the ones that we let everything down with and and let all all of our complaints out.
And if we’re focusing that on them Right. That can make a huge difference.
And we definitely need to encourage our kids.
And especially today, the world is a pretty rough place, and there’s all kinds of peer pressure.
And when you get into the teenage years, sometimes maybe most of the time they’re giving you trouble.
And so it’s easy to just pick on their flaws and their faults and tell them what they shouldn’t do.
But they need. They really need to be encouraged.
You need to teach your kids that they can do anything that god wants them to do.
That they have a great destiny. They have a purpose.
They don’t need to be afraid that you know, just just to keep that encouragement going all the time.
That is hugely important. And with our own children, of course, you know, to really pray that god shows us those good things in them that we can encourage them with and and not trying to make them who we want them to be because sometimes we just see flaws
Mhmm.
For for god to show us all those great things.
I had the opportunity along with Erin Clulley to go to the dream center to the after school program with some of the kids yesterday, and it had such a great time encouraging those kids.
And, you know, because they are in some rough situations where they are in the city.
And so we we showed them geode and told them, you know, the outside doesn’t look like much.
But inside, god has put all of these wonderful things in you.
So we just started talking about what do you like? What can you do?
And you could just see that they had so much fun talking about those things that god put in them.
And if we can help other people see that, because so often we don’t see it in ourselves.
And, you know, when you do encourage people, this is kind of a takeoff from that.
But, like, the people that work for me or the people that work for you, you can see a big difference in them if you encourage them.
Encouragement will make people wanna work harder for you.
It’ll make them wanna do more, make them wanna do what they are doing. Really excellent.
Encouragement really is a powerful tool, and we need to make sure that we use it.
And I there’s so many scriptures that talk about encouragement.
And you said something before about You have to stir it up sometimes. Mhmm.
And, you know, the Bible tells us that it’s our job to stir ourselves up.
A lot of times we sit around and wait for somebody else to come around and encourage us. Mhmm.
When we’re not sowing the seeds to reap a harvest.
Oh, that’s great. Yeah.
And something that I’ve I’ve done. My husband encourages me a lot.
Like, I mean, he, you know, he always He’s very kind. Yeah. He always tells me, you look good.
You’re you’re pretty, you know, you’re gonna have a great day today or I prayed for you about this or that.
And I have kinda taken that as god speaking through him to me.
I think a lot of times when that god wants to use you because he works through people.
Yeah.
And so many people, like, feel like I just need encouragement from god.
But maybe when other people are encouraging you, you need to realize that it is god working through them.
And not just take it as, you know, no big deal.
No. That’s really good.
But god reaching out through them to help you along your way.
And that’s really what it means of being an encourager to help somebody along their way to keep them moving in the right direction.
And there is nobody that doesn’t need encouragement.
Yeah. Why is it so hard for us to accept that encouragement sometimes to believe it?
Like, you are talking about, you know, My husband will tell me all the time, you know, you you you look beautiful today.
I’m like, you you say that every day. You have to say that. And that’s not true.
He certainly doesn’t have to. So it is sometimes difficult for us to accept what god may be telling us through other people about, you know, the good things that he has for us and what he’s put in us and who we are.
But it’s it’s hard for us sometimes.
Well, I’m not saying it’s the case with you because I know you’re pretty confident, but I know one person I’m thinking of that they’re not real confident.
And so anytime you try to compliment them, they deflect it So I think a lot of people that don’t know how to receive encouragement, it’s because of the way they feel about themselves.
Yeah.
And so You have to start with that.
And, you know, David, King David in the Bible said that he encouraged himself in the lord.
And so sometimes when you don’t have anybody to encourage you, you can encourage yourself by reminding yourself who you are in Christ and that god loves me and god has a plan and a purpose for my life.
And, you know, our mind is so important.
I mean, it’s I had occasion for a book I’m gonna be working on to do some looking at some scriptures about the mind recently.
And the mind is so powerful, and we can control our thought and you need to be really careful about thinking all kinds of negative stuff about yourself, but learn how to encourage yourself and the lord.
Like one way you can do it is so many people, they just look at how far they have to go.
As far as becoming Christlike.
When you become a Christian, you start hearing what you should be, and then you start seeing what you are.
Mhmm. And so you you wanna change. And that change is a process. It takes a long time.
Part of that length of time depends on how well we cooperate with god.
But instead of thinking about how far you have to go, You need to think about how far you’ve come.
Yeah. And always tell people, celebrate your progress. Take a little bit of time to celebrate your progress.
We’re really good at beating ourselves over the head when we don’t do it right. Yeah. We are.
But not so good at encouraging ourselves or letting god encourage us when we’ve made progress.
Well, I love what you said, and I think it’s a great way to close out this conversation about having that goal of putting a smile.
On three people’s faces today.
And and what you were talking about, sometimes you’ll notice something and not want to say it to a stranger maybe.
And I’ve I’ve learned. It just tell them.
Oh, yeah.
It makes them so happy, you know, when you say you you look so nice today.
It, like, even someone who’s at store who I don’t know, you know, who’s maybe checking me out or something like that at the cash register.
And I’ll just say, you know, you just you just look great to you.
I love that outfit or whatever. I love your hair, whatever it may be. People people, it matters.
It changes their day.
I always tell people that have red hair. I love your red hair.
And, uh, if I think a color good on somebody.
I’ll tell them that color looks really good on you.
Yeah.
And and I do that with strangers too because people are hurting And just because they’re got a job to do and they’re trying to do it without letting you know they’re hurting, that doesn’t mean they’re not hurting.
And, I mean, like, people today are really hurting. There’s just so many sad things going on.
And we never know when we’re around somebody that we would term a stranger what that person might be going through.
And so I think we need to just encourage as many people as we possibly can.
So I’m gonna challenge people to start praying. That god will put things on your heart.
Just nice god put nice things about people that I run into.
On my heart and give me the courage to open my mouth and say it.
And sometimes you do feel foolish, but that’s the enemy making you feel that way.
And the more you do it, the less you’ll feel that way.
Yeah. Another thing that I really try to work on is not to be too broad in your encouragement to to be really specific
so
that it means something to people that that you notice who they are, that you know something about them. Yeah.
So the more instead of just saying, you know, thank you for doing that, I can say, you know, I really appreciate the the way that you helped me accomplish this particular thing or whatever it may be, but being really pointed and specific encourages people in a greater way.
One of the greatest statements that I’ve ever heard is that when you spend time with somebody, They may not always remember what you said to them, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
That’s very true. Well, I feel encouraged.
Thank you.
