Encouragement: The Unexpected Power of Building Others Up (1984/2013) by Larry Crabb and Dan Allender is an excellent book on how to speak into one another's lives. In this book, Crabb calls the reader to move beyond surface conversations to those that are 1) prompted by love and 2) directed toward fear. I suspect that many of us resonate with the first part. At least on some level, we know that what we do must come from a place of love, whatever that means. However, when Crabb talks about encouragement being directed toward fear, that may be confusing for many of us. Essentially, he makes the point that many of us hide behind layers that serve to protect us from exposure and abandonment. I have heard Dr Crabb say in the past "looking bad in the presence of love releases our true self" and I think he gets at that here.
If you want to learn how to have godly, meaningful conversations, may this book be an encouragement to you. I would like to loan my copy to all of my friends, but I will likely want to read my own again first.
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