Consider Mentoring and Encouraging
Where would we be today without someone significant in our life who encouraged us? Prayed for us? Offered us a shoulder to cry on? Made us laugh? Taught us a skill? Ran interference for us? Shared Christ with us?
There are probably a lot of “somebodies” who encouraged you on your journey—cheered, inspired, counseled, built you up, gave you confidence, turned you from disappointment. All of us can build up one another no matter where we are in our Christian growth. Ultimately, we express Christ’s love when we do.
We’ve heard the saying, “If no one is following you, you are just taking a walk.” Are we investing in the lives of others–sharing what we know? Setting an example by our way of living?
Wouldn’t our sphere of influence be enriched if each of us would earnestly mentor another person? Just to encourage someone in practical and spiritual ways, passing down our experience, knowledge, and wisdom on a one-on-one basis?
Edgar A. Guest’s poem “I’d Rather See A Sermon” has inspired me for many years. When we need advice for mentoring someone, his message in this poem seems to express it best:
I’d Rather See A Sermon by Edgar A. Guest
I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day;
I’d rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way.
The eye’s a better pupil and more willing than the ear,
Fine counsel is confusing, but example’s always clear….
I soon can learn to do it if you’ll let me see it done;
I can watch your hands in action, but your tongue too fast may run.
And the lecture you deliver may be very wise and true,
But I’d rather get my lessons by observing what you do;
For I might misunderstand you and the high advise you give,
But there’s no misunderstanding how you act and how you live.1
Paul, the Apostle, was considered a mentor–someone who set the example for Christian living. He wrote the Philippians, “The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, do,” (Phil 4:9 NKJV) or “practice those things” (AMP). “Imitate me, just as I imitate Christ,” he wrote the Corinthians (I Cor.11:1 NKJV).
To the Thessalonians Paul wrote: “For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example” (2 Thess.3:7). The Greek word for “follow” here means “mimic” or “actor.” It implies to study the life, deeds, actions of a person to duplicate or reproduce those attributes that you observe in their lives.
“Live the legacy you want to leave. Legacy lives on in people, and people live on after you are gone,” writes John C. Maxwell, author of many books on leadership.
Win Couchman says, “A mentor is someone further down the road from you who is willing to hold the light to help you get there.” Mentoring: the passing down of knowledge as one shares from his or her life experience.
Let’s go mentor and encourage those God asks us to help succeed.
Prayer: Lord, I thank You for those who have mentored me. Help me be alert to those You want me to help and teach. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
1. Edgar A. Guest (1881-1959) was often called the “poet of the people.” He said, “I take simple everyday things that happen to me and I figure it happens to a lot of other people and I make simple rhymes out of them.” He wrote about 11,000 poems during his lifetime.
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