We have different gifts, according to the grace given us, If it is encouraging, let him encourage...

Romans 12:5, 8

I still remember this event as clearly as if it had happened yesterday, though it took place almost 50 years ago. We had just moved to the Denver area and Mom signed me up for soccer. I had played that game for several years, but it had been a few years since I had played on a team. I had previously played at the right wing, a position reserved for the fastest players on the team. While I had previously been fast, I had stopped growing in height in recent years but had not slowed down any in my eating during that time.

What had slowed down was my speed. I found this out when the coach looked at me with a critical eye and decided to put me to the test. We had moved there after the season had started so all of the other boys had been playing together for a while and they already had the wing position nicely established. I believe my new coach was from Scotland, for he had a thick brogue accent. The right wing and I were matches in a race and off we went! Perhaps I should say "off he went" for he smoked me by about ten yards. Red faced, I trotted back to the coach and team. I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting to hear, but I am sure it included laughter and a few derisive comments.

Instead my new coach, the one who was to instantly become my favorite coach of all time, said, "Aye, e's a winger". Loosely translated, this meant "Yes, this boy is fast enough to play the wing position."

Now as a new kid who was certain that he had just humiliated himself, I cannot tell you how much this small bit of encouragement did for me. When the coach later confided to me that, though I was indeed a wing, they sure needed help at the fullback position and did I think I could do that, I readily accepted. Even though the fullback position was typically reserved for the team tortoise, rather than the team hare, I immediately agreed. Looking back, I would have played anywhere that coach wanted me to for he had a gift of encouragement that just made you feel like you wanted to please him in anyway you could. So I looked at him then as I do now: As a great man!

How do people look at us? Do they perceive us as someone who is ready to pounce at the smallest mistake? Do they avoid us when they do make mistakes because they don't want to have their noses rubbed in it? Or do they seek us out because they know that we will have those much needed words of encouragement - words that will build them up rather than tear them down? It's important, I believe, that we think about the way people look at us from time to time. I have found that it takes very little thought to kick someone when they are down. At the same time, it also takes very little effort to help pick them back up.

But the difference between little thought and little effort is often enormous, for you have the power to breathe new spirit into others or to knock the wind out of them depending on which way you decide to handle them. I want to repeat that the difference in effort between building up and tearing down is almost nothing, but depending on which route you take, it will change the way they look at you.

My coach was a great, great man! You could not convince me to the contrary if you tried, for this is the way I will always look at him. How do people... look at you?