Tag Archives: elizabeth

day 3K254: Understand…Validate…Encourage

“Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, “God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed.”

Mini-series:  I am going to write on three very important and impacting things we each need and we each need to do.  That is to understand, validate and encourage others.

Let’s start today with what it means to understand.  Understand is a verb.  That means it is an action that we must undertake.  And, as we know, it takes energy and time to truly understand anything.  When we don’t understand things or understand people, then we run the risk of being ignorant, silly, vulnerable, lost or even taken.  Look no further than the recent collapse of the Crypto-Finance world.  Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency is hard to understand.  I find it very implausible that the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who have lost real money in the meltdown truly understood what was at stake for their investments to be secure.  Had they, I find it hard to believe that that many people would have taken the level of risk that they did, especially with such large amounts of their savings and net worth.  We must seek to understand and we must work hard to understand. The same is true with other people’s experiences, points of view, feelings, etc.  The downsides are obvious and so are the upsides of truly being one who understands.  Want to be someone who others seek out to gain your opinion?  Be one that truly understands.

The Christmas story that is still fresh in our minds gives us a glimpse into the power of understanding.  Mary was going through an experience that no one else had ever had.  She was trying to explain to others what a miracle was like.  But, who would even begin to understand her?  The one who understood her was Elizabeth.  And why?  Because Elizabeth had done her own understanding work on the miracles and on the backside was able to quickly recognize and understand that Mary was experiencing a miracle, just like she had.  If we can see two amazing people examples of understanding this miracle and see how one person helped another along creating a forever impact on eternity, then surely we can do our best for Him today to seek to understand what and whom we have in our lives.

Reference: Luke 1:42 (New Living Translation)