I used to call myself a detrimentalist. I was half-joking. But, the truth is, for almost as long as I can remember I’ve had a nearly constant underlying sense that any idea I had was a bad idea, and any endeavor I thought worth trying would inevitably fail. Doesn’t that sound dramatic? Maybe so, but that feeling of detrimentalism – that, on some level, any move I made would be ruinous, or that somehow my very presence in the world was a problem – has been haunting and persistent.  

Thankfully, I was also born with an innate stubbornness. If I cared about something enough, I’d typically press on, even though everything in me felt certain it wouldn’t work out. Needless to say, in my life the pattern has been one of being particularly vulnerable to discouragement. Discouragement feels, in many ways, like the most natural state.  

A lot of writers for a long time have made a distinction between the mind and the heart. More lately, I’ve gotten into the work of a particular fellow by the name of Dr. Jim Wilder. He’s a theologian as well as a neurologist, and many of his insights into how God has designed the brain and body to be in union with the mind and spirit have been both fascinating and helpful to me the last six months.  

Wilder says that the heart stores up relational experience while the mind specializes in intellectual data. There’s a kind of dissonance that makes peace impossible within us when what we believe to be true intellectually can’t be reconciled with our experiences relationally. But we have peace within our bodies and brains when what is (relational experience) and what ought to be (intellectual beliefs) agree with each other. 

Wilder tells a story from his own life. He couldn’t figure out why he avoided church during Holy Week, particularly Good Friday. He was an adult, had completed seminary, was a committed Christian, but there was something about the crucifixion of Jesus that repelled him. As he prayed and asked for insight, he began to remember an early childhood memory. He was around five and had been taken by his missionary parents to a revival. Multiple preachers had been lined up to present, and, in their fervor, each one ratcheted up the next one, until they seemed to be trying to outdo the prior preacher in their passion. Particularly in their descriptions of the gruesomeness and horror of the crucifixion. Finally, one of the preachers, caught up in the momentum, drove his point home with special intensity, exclaiming as he glared at the crowd, “You killed Jesus! Your sin nailed him to that cross!”  

Wilder explains that the neurology of a developing child doesn’t acquire the capacity to differentiate between reality and imagination, literalism and hyperbole, plain speech and figurative language until about age twelve. This is why scary movies are particularly scary to children under 12, their brains have not yet gained the capacity to distinguish between what’s real life and what’s just a movie. So, when the preacher said, “You killed Jesus!” Five-year-old Jim Wilder took it literally. That experience then moved in and became a permanent fixture in his heart. Ever since, and even though he knew better intellectually, his heart believed that his badness was stronger than Jesus’ goodness.  

It was only later, as he sought healing in this area, that Jim experienced Jesus telling him that he was not, in fact, a threat or detrimental to God. Jesus had gladly gone to the cross for him, and stayed there out of love for that little five year old boy. Sin had not held him there, love had. That preacher, in his passion to drive home a point, had trespassed, unwittingly laying a burden on a little boy that even a full-grown man could never be expected to carry.  

Interesting, isn’t it? Interesting how our hearts get broken. How the courage can be drained right out of them, while at the same time, our minds are doing their best to pick up the slack only to get more and more exhausted. Jim Wilder’s mind had been to seminary, but his heart was still, in many ways, that of a shamed five year old. Until, as an adult, he asked the Lord to give a better word to that part of himself that couldn’t bear to face a crucified Jesus. Jesus transformed Good Friday from a burden to a gift. Jesus said, “You didn’t take my life from me, I offered it up for you, because I wanted to, because you are so dear to me. You are not a burden to me, or a threat. No, the truth is I delight in you. I was more than glad to travel into suffering and danger to extract you from the grip of sorrow and death.”  

What an encouragement. 

When discouragement feels like the most natural state, it may be that we’ve absorbed and internalized some lie about ourselves. Even today, even this very week, I’m fighting against those places in me that have been so deeply burdened by discouragement given or by encouragement that was withheld. 

We’d like to think we don’t need each other, especially if we’ve been hurt. And we may assume that other people don’t need us, and that our presence is not that important. Both are untrue. I need your encouragement and you need mine. I need your gifts and you need mine. Of course, there are times for healthy correction, and unpleasant honesty, if we’re going to grow at all. We can’t say or listen exclusively to the things that make us feel good. But I’d bet most of us are more or less aware of our shortcomings, and we’re in need of more encouragement than not. In other words, I don’t think you need to worry that giving encouragement will endanger the recipient. If you’re worried about that, then it’s very likely you’ve withheld a precious resource from them quite long enough, and I’d be willing to guess that it was withheld from you. 

Which brings me to this… say the good things. Say them. Say them outloud to someone. Look for goodness and celebrate it. Make a big fuss. If you see something good in someone, get over the awkwardness (I mean embrace it) and tell them what you like about them. Sometimes we experience discouragement like a rock someone drops on our chest; other times we suffer from a void, a negation, from a form of starvation as love and good things are withheld, they simply go unsaid. 

If you’re like me and late to the game, to express love and encouragement will be a skill you haven’t learned. You’ll feel like you aren’t good at it, you don’t know how to do it. Let me encourage you, you can do it. You have good things to give. You have the power to bless, to affirm, to help others see and sense their own loveliness and worth. You can look them in the eyes and say a good thing, pronounce a benediction, and call out of them goodness that Jesus gladly died to raise up from the ash-heap of shame. 

Look, I’m writing this for my own sake, too. As one with a tendency toward detrimentalism, I know what a relief a few drops of deliberate, albeit awkward encouragement can be. As we walk along this pilgrim way together, we are given into each other’s hands, and our hands are given the power to touch and bless our companions as we smile upon them and speak aloud the good things, the better words, that Christ died to assure us were, in fact, true.