Thanks to nakedpastor for this (don't copy the cartoon without making a donation to him via his website? please?) It has made me chuckle. Double click on the pic to see it bigger.
Never forget who you are doing church for. Discouragement will always be with us, its a sad fact of our fallen humanity and each of us is as capable of spreading it as the next. No-one is excluded.
However, I can't wait to soak in and absorb the culture of honour I have learned so much about from friends at Bethel and will be covered at a leaders school I hope to attend in the autumn.
The reality of my life is:
I remember the one negative and forget the 99 positive.
I recount the one negative and not the 99 positive.
I spend too much of my time talking about, thinking about and planning for the one negative and not on the 99 positive.
I must go out of my way to encourage with the 99 positive and not with the one negative.
I see in the church something that I saw in teaching (I taught teenagers for 11 years full time) - the child who kicks off and disrupts the learning, who struggles with life the universe and everything, for a whole variety of reasons, (most often because of loss/neglect/addiction at home), lets you know about it and can take up so much of your time and energy. And the others who are getting on with their work, doing the stuff, working through the tasks, on message, getting results? They were often ignored and left to get on with it. This is the true story often for many teachers, primary and secondary. Remember to praise them and spend time with them and honour what they are doing :-)
Oh, and in Scotland if you ever dare recount even one or two of the 99 positive you're a big head blowing your own trumpet and you're setting yourself up for a fall because the one negative will creep up on you and get ya anyway.
(the last paragraph is a Lynn paraphrase of a short talk Rev Peter Neilson of the C of S gave at the end of Brian McLaren's presentation here in December. He was appealing to us to encourage and bless the good and not focus on the negative).
hey thanks for using my cartoon... just remember, you can't please everybody, and probably can't please anybody... but your own conscience...
ReplyDeleteor you'll get fries with that.
thanks for letting me use it David.
ReplyDeleteand for stopping by the blog :-)
I may be going deaf but I hear what you say sis, and this olde dog is tail wagging happy you're in the Burgh!
ReplyDeleteyo lynn, i enjoyed this post a lot at the time. think i wrote a few things but the one i remember is something that kay taught me! (a gem from the wise lady herself). basically, we were talking about how easy it is to listen to the negative and not take on board the positive, and she encouraged me to make my positive encouragements of people much more specific - so instead of 'that was a good talk' say 'that was a good talk and i identified with point x and God said x and this encouraged me because of x so thank you for giving being faithful to him in speaking that to us'. and i've noticed since then how much more positive SPECIFIC encouragement and blessing sticks around for a lot longer because it's almost physically got handles on it that you can hold onto.
ReplyDelete... equally specific negative feedback hangs around too?
hey han, thanks so much for your comment and welcome to the blog!!
ReplyDeleteThat praise technique is featured in session 2 of the Positive Parenting Programme (www.triplep.net).
Thanks for highlighting it here!