Encouragement

This was a great read today; I think I'm going to have to get Tullian Tchividjian's book Unfashionable when it's released. This is an excerpt, of which a fuller rendition is posted today on his blog.

Since encouraging others is the verbal affirmation of God’s reflection in
and through them, then encouraging people awakens in them their sense of being
made in God’s image. It causes them to feel different, alive, profoundly
human—and this helps them to become aware that they are more than a number, more than a product, more than a machine, more than a chance happening. It helps them to feel that they are, in fact, “fearfully and wonderfully made.” This forces
them to reflect deeply on who they really are as human beings, which in turn
causes them to reflect on their Creator. As Calvin observed, none of us can
honestly examine ourselves without coming to see that we’re created by someone
for someone. This recognition stirs up real humanness in people, causing them to
reflect on what they’re missing spiritually (not materially). They start sensing
how there’s more to who they are than what this world is telling them.