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Encouragement: Our Gift to the Next Generation

By Grant McClung

I grew up in the western United States, a region of wide, open spaces, massive ranches, and extensive farms. It was, at least in my childhood imagination (helped along by Hollywood images), a place captured in the idyllic words of a cowboy tune commonly regarded as the anthem of the American West:

Home, home on the range
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.1

Since those childhood days, life’s realities have taught me that not all words are encouraging, not all days are cloudless, and most endeavors are met with obstacles and those “special” individuals who seem especially able to locate the negative in every situation!

 
In scripture, encouragement carries the emphasis of “urging
forward, persuading, counseling with, and stimulating” others in
the discharge of their duties and obligations as believers.

Are You a Discourager?
In retrospect, we smile when we recount that:

  • After Fred Astaire’s first screen test, a 1933 memo from the MGM testing director said: “Can’t act. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.” Astaire kept that memo over the fireplace in his Beverly Hills mansion.

  • An “expert” said of legendary football coach Vince Lombardi: “He possesses minimal football knowledge. Lacks motivation.”

  • Louisa May Alcott, the author of the famous Little Women, was advised by her family to forsake writing and find work as a servant or seamstress.

  • Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him hopeless as a composer.

  • The teacher of famous opera singer Enrico Caruso said Caruso had no voice and could not sing.

  • Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper for “lacking ideas.” He went bankrupt several times before building Disneyland.2

Although there have been well-known individuals such as these, who persevered in the face of resistance, doubt, and insurmountable odds, there are multiplied millions who have accomplished much in life because they were encouraged by others.

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Dr. Grant McClung is an advisor to the Missions Commission of the Pentecostal World Fellowship and is a member of the International Executive Council for the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee, USA).