{"id":697,"date":"2010-08-25T06:29:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-25T06:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2010\/08\/how-to-love-with-encouragement.html"},"modified":"2010-08-25T06:29:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-25T06:29:00","slug":"how-to-love-with-encouragement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/how-to-love-with-encouragement.html","title":{"rendered":"How to Love with Encouragement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Encourage literally means <b>&#8220;to put in courage.&#8221;<\/b> It was C.S. Lewis who said, <i>&#8220;Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.&#8221;<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Lewis links courage to our other virtues&#8211;like honesty and integrity because without courage, these virtues will never withstand the trials and temptations of this world.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div>When you encourage someone, you are not only saying a kind word or offering a positive observation. You are, in fact, making a deposit of courage into their character. <\/p>\n<p>As a thought experiment, consider two young people of relatively equal station in life. Both will get beat up by the world, and both will experience the ebb and flow of life&#8217;s currents. But now let&#8217;s give one of them a true encourager. <\/p>\n<p>This encourager will continually build up the young man and remind him of his character and true nature in Christ. Time after time this encourager offers not only the &#8220;atta boys,&#8221; but also the brass tacks encouragements to press forward even when it is hard (and sometimes <i>because<\/i> it is hard). <\/p>\n<p>Two people, one with the love of true encouragement, and one without. Who will fare better in this volatile world?<\/p>\n<p>True encouragers help you persevere through the times when you experience the refining fires of God&#8217;s crucible.<\/p>\n<p>Do you need an encourager like this? Are you an encourager like this? Thank God I have a few. One of the best in my life is my good friend and mentor,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/wesroberts.typepad.com\/\">Wes Roberts.<\/a>&nbsp;He&#8217;s even become an encourager to my son, Hayden, who has stepped into the teenage years. How has an encourager changed your life?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Encourage literally means &#8220;to put in courage.&#8221; It was C.S. Lewis who said, &#8220;Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.&#8221; Lewis links courage to our other virtues&#8211;like honesty and integrity because without courage, these virtues will never withstand the trials and temptations of this&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to Love with Encouragement - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/how-to-love-with-encouragement.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Love with Encouragement - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Encourage literally means &#8220;to put in courage.&#8221; It was C.S. Lewis who said, &#8220;Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.&#8221; Lewis links courage to our other virtues&#8211;like honesty and integrity because without courage, these virtues will never withstand the trials and temptations of this&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/how-to-love-with-encouragement.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-25T06:29:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Davis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How to Love with Encouragement - Red Letters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/how-to-love-with-encouragement.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How to Love with Encouragement - Red Letters","og_description":"Encourage literally means &#8220;to put in courage.&#8221; It was C.S. Lewis who said, &#8220;Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.&#8221; Lewis links courage to our other virtues&#8211;like honesty and integrity because without courage, these virtues will never withstand the trials and temptations of this&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/how-to-love-with-encouragement.html","og_site_name":"Red Letters","article_published_time":"2010-08-25T06:29:00+00:00","author":"Tom Davis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/how-to-love-with-encouragement.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/how-to-love-with-encouragement.html","name":"How to Love with Encouragement - Red Letters","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-08-25T06:29:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-08-25T06:29:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/how-to-love-with-encouragement.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/how-to-love-with-encouragement.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/how-to-love-with-encouragement.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How to Love with Encouragement"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/","name":"Red Letters","description":"Christian, Christian Inspiration, Christian News, Christian Activism News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92","name":"Tom Davis","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","caption":"Tom Davis"},"description":"Tom Davis currently serves as CEO of Children's HopeChest (www.hopechest.org), a global orphan care ministry headquartered in Colorado Springs. A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}