Affirm Your Spouse

Affirm is a great word. In Latin it means to make firm, to strengthen. Applied to facts, it means to add our testimony to the fact to strengthen it. With people, it is similar. When we speak to them in a way that makes them stronger, firmer, more resolute, we are affirming them.

"Dear brothers and sisters, we always thank God for you, as is right, for we are thankful that your faith is flourishing and you are all growing in love for each other." –2 Thessalonians 1:3 (NLT)

Mighty messenger he was, but Paul always had the heart of a father when writing to the young churches. Habitually, he began his letters with affirmation.

Affirmation is a testimony to the truth. It isn’t flattery, for flattery has a self-serving motive. Affirmation is all about strengthening someone else. Your reward will be in knowing how much it has helped.

All people need to know that someone valuable sees their worth and progress. Though we can survive without such affirmation, we may not thrive without it.

Many people have a soul disease that causes selective blindness, deafness, and loss of speech. They see every fault, but are blind to every blessing. Their hearing is acutely tuned to every slip of the tongue, every inaccurate word or phrase. But they miss the wisdom, the joy, the pleasure of listening to their loved ones with their hearts. Their tongues can race like an untamed horse at a full gallop, clawing away at the exposed souls of their spouses. But they are struck dumb in expressing appreciation or admiration. Such a pathetic condition! They claim they can see, hear, and speak as well as the next person. But they don’t have any idea how sick they are, what that sickness is doing to them, or worst of all, what it is doing to their spouses and children.

I suppose some caught this disease when they were young. Growing up in a home without affirmation can make a person sick like that. It’s selective, though. Some who never heard a kind word all their lives are fountains of praise and affirmation. It is as though the same atmosphere poisoned one and purified another.

Grace is the cure

If you are infected and tired of living with this crippling disease in your soul, I know a great cure. Grace is the cure. And grace has only one source: it always comes from God, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit. He is the only fountain. When we are in a relationship with him he fills us with grace, and it is always true that what fills us, controls us. Grace clarifies our vision, opens our deaf ears, and makes our destructive tongues instruments of healing. We become less critical and less cruel. Instead, we begin noticing the good, the progress, the value of the people around us. Then they change. Drooping shoulders straighten; dull eyes brighten; confidence grows.

Reasons We Do Not Affirm

Here are four reasons we fail to affirm:

• Too Angry: Angry people never say words that heal and strengthen. Often their anger is rooted in unforgiveness. Their souls are more like barren deserts than gardens, and hot withering winds blow from them.
• Too Busy: Busy people are moving too fast to see anybody, except maybe the jerks who are getting in their way.
• Too Self-Centered: When it’s all about you, no one else really matters.
• Too Spiritual: True spirituality makes us lovers– people who touch those around us with the grace of God. But there is a counterfeit spirituality that isolates us in an ethereal fog. Losing touch with anyone real makes us just a little spooky.

I’d like to affirm you. No matter who you are, no matter what you think about yourself, God loves you! He hates the sin that has sickened your heart, and sent Jesus to die to bring you freedom from it. He can redeem you from all brokenness, and make you a true lover. All you need to do is believe in him. As the Bible says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, and your household.” –Acts 16:31

Already a believer in Jesus, but still feel incapable of affirming your loved ones? Ask God to change your heart, fill you with love, and give you a new way to see, to hear, and to speak. I promise you: he will do it. This truth I can affirm!