Happy Praise

When was the last time you encouraged and affirmed someone in your life? When was the last time you wrote a note, or looked a friend or a family member in the eye, to point out some evidence of God’s grace in someone's life? Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” We have the opportunity and even the choice every day to speak encouraging and affirming words to those in our life, or we can speak words that are critical and negative. In the book of Acts, we see a person rise to the top in excelling at this. In fact, this man was so encouraging and affirming of others that the apostles renamed him Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement.”