Hello, welcome to the Excel Stillmore podcast.

I am your host, Chris Emerson, and we are here to talk about tips and strategies that you can employ to deepen your faith, improve your relationships, and just get the most out of your life.

Thank you for joining. Let's get started.

Okay, so most people I know, myself included, enjoy the feeling of being cheered on and appreciated.

When I was little in baseball and I'd rip a double down the line and everybody

in the stands was cheering, it felt amazing. Everybody loves to be uplifted, complimented,

cheered on, and encouraged. This goes into adulthood for most of us. I mean, there are some introverts who don't like attention,

but even they love to be appreciated. When you do something and others tell you, you did a great job,

that was super impressive, you're awesome, it makes you feel good. And it's a part of God's plan for encouragement. The Bible is filled

with instruction about lifting people up, rejoicing with those who rejoice, encouraging one

another, and just generally helping joy live in us by not only talking about how valuable God is, but how valuable we are, how important we are

in relationships and in life. And so there's a lot of cheering going on. Love it. Love the cheering.

We cheer on our kids. Brethren, cheer on one another. But the question is this. How do you respond? How do you react? What do you do next

after the cheers? What do you do when there aren't supporters standing around you smiling and in awe of your accomplishments. I've always thought that

the truest test and tell of a man's character is how he responded to trials. Find someone in a place

where things are going poorly. Find someone in a place where there's nowhere to turn. The words

that they say the way they behave, that tells you the whole story. I always use Jesus as an

indication. He's on the cross. He's dying. Listen to his words. It'll tell you all you need to know

about him. Well, I still think that that is powerful,

but I want to change it just a little bit. In the moment when the cheers stop, in the moment when the

support is removed, maybe not nefariously, maybe just because, you know, we've moved on.

Everybody's doing something else now.

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