Encouragement brings Unity

A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with some young people (younger than me) and we got on the topic of unity. What is unity? What does unity look like? Here are some words we used to describe unity:

Trust
Prefer one another
Compassion
Loving one another
Loving God
Encourage one another

From there we started brainstorming encouragement. How often do we encourage? Why don't we encourage more? It's not hard, so why are we more inclined to criticize (negatively) than give encouragement? Even in jesting, a lot of times there is a bit of truth added.

It feels good to be encouraged, it makes you feel important, renews hope, and boosts confidence. And it's awesome to see a person's face light up when they are encouraged. How can there be unity if you don't know that others are "for you"? Part of being a team and a unit is supporting one another in encouraging words, building one another up to be who they were intended. It's hard to work together when all that is heard are negative comments. That night we set a challenge to encourage one another. We went around the room and each person said encouraging words to one another and you could see their faces light up with each word said, they held their heads higher, their spirits were lifted and they knew that their friends really did love and appreciate them.