The Importance of Encouragement

Encouragement is far more important than we often realize. It's an attitude that focuses more on the reality of what Christians are becoming than on where they are presently failing. You realize that, in the end, every one of God's children will end up pure and perfect because God has taken on himself the burden of purifying us. Then you emphasize where you see hints and glimmers of that future glory pressing itself into the present moment.

Encouragement is much more than a pat on the back. It's inviting someone to become aware of the evidence in her life that shows God is at work.

--William P. Smith, Loving Well (Even If You Haven't Been) (Greensboro, NC: New Growth, 2012), 125.