Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY
/
5 Ways to Encourage Your Man
5 Ways to Encourage Your Man
Mar 18, 2025 7:39 PM

  5 Ways to Encourage Your Man

  By Heather Riggleman

  “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” - Hebrews 10:23-25

  Zig Ziglar once said, "You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life." Isn’t that the truth? And I’m so grateful my husband makes it a point. No one can encourage me like Chris can. His words, his belief in me, his actions, his touch. He has the power to diffuse stress and make everything okay. He is my home and my rock. He knows what I need to hear and when I need to hear it. Sometimes I roll my eyes and saythank you for the lip service. My sweet husband replies, “You know it babe,” before giving me a smooch on the lips.

  Encouragement is a practice - a lost practice but it is one that builds up a marriage. Learning to be encouraging is a skill that comes more naturally to some of us than others. However, the good news is that we can all learn to become more encouraging people with practice. In fact, it seems we must! Recent studies demonstrate that we are gradually losing our aptitude for encouragement, due at least in part to our society's increasingly narcissistic tendencies.

  It creates sacred space, love, warmth and so many other things. It’s poetic and empowering. It’s the balm to a weary and wounded soul. It’s the life force from your lips that your spouse needs not just to survive but thrive on those rough days. It is part of a healthy marriage. Good encouragement takes trail and frequency but most of all it takes practice to figure out what speaks the loudest to your mate.

  While you may still be stuck on the phrase “lip service” I can assure you it’s not. It means: “to fill with courage.” Encouraging your spouse literally places courage in them just like “entrust” means to place trust in someone. You have the blessed ability to fill your spouse with courage. In a world bent on tearing down the male sex, your husband needs to hear it more than ever.

  In his book, The Man Whisperer: Speaking Your Man's Language to Bring Out His Best, author Rick Johnson says women often don’t realize the power they have when it comes to their husbands.

  “I don’t think a lot of women recognize it,” Johnson says, “but they have this power just by their words sometimes, or sometimes even a look, that they can literally destroy their husbands or they can lift them up to do things that they would never do on their own without her encouragement and support.”

  He encourages women to learn how their words and actions can influence their spouse to become all that God wants them to be. Today’s passage reminds us what a gift encouragement can be in marriage. Hebrews 10:23-25 says

  “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

  The aim of our "considering one another" and "encouraging one another" is that we stir up love. When encouragement is absent from the life of our spouses, they will feel unloved, unimportant, useless, and forgotten. Isn’t that the way you feel when your husband doesn’t notice your new hair cut or how you managed to get through the night routine with your family unscathed?

  The word encouragement, literally translated from French, means to give someone else your courage. Courage, then, is like love—the more you give it away, the more you will receive in return. If you want to improve your marriage or be a better example of a Godly wife for your children, here are five ways to begin encouraging your husband!

  5 Ways to Encourage Your Husband:1. Words – Whenever possible, compliment your husband, especially in front of your kids. This applies even when his family or friends are around. Give a sincere compliment, it could be anything you appreciate about him.

  2. Text Him – Surprise him with a flirty text message or tell him why you are so grateful to be his wife.

  3. Touch Him – Physical touch can translate into love for a lot of men. Find a way to touch him, like rubbing his shoulders when he passes by or hugging his rib cage, etc.

  4. Be There – Whenever my husband is working on a project in the garage, I grab a book or nail file and go sit in the garage. I don’t have to say a word the entire afternoon and yet, he is thrilled. Whenever possible, be there. Whether he’s watching a game or working on a project. Just by being there, it reminds him you love just being with him.

  5. Encourage his Hobbies– I’m not a fan of sitting by a lake and fishing all night long but my husband loves to fish. Whenever possible encourage your man to pursue his hobby. If you know nothing is on the calendar for tonight, set his gear by the front door. He will be surprised that you’re encouraging him to take the evening for himself.

  Heather Riggleman calls Nebraska home (Hey, it’s not for everyone) with her three kids and husband of 20 years. She writes to bring bold truths to marriage, career, mental health, faith, relationships, celebration and heartache. She is the co-host of the Moms Together Podcast and is a former national award-winning journalist. She is the author of Mama Needs a Time Out and Let’s Talk About Prayer. Her work has been featured on Proverbs 31 Ministries, MOPS, Today's Christian Woman and Focus On the Family. You can find her at www.heatherriggleman.com.

  Related Resource: 4 Truths About Marriage Every Couple Needs to RememberNo matter how long you’ve been married, reminding yourself of fundamental marriage truths is helpful. In this episode of the Team Us Podcast, Ted and Ashleigh share four truths about marriage every couple needs to remember. If you like what you hear, head over toApple or Spotify and subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode!

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY
A subtle threat to freedom
Conventional understanding may tend to gloss over the distinction between the concepts munity or society and of state or government. Many in the popular media often use the munity, society, state, and government interchangeably. mon usage of these terms introduces a fallacy with potentially dire consequences. Communal or social obligations are those that all people have mon. This does not mean that every social obligation is, or should be, enforceable by the state or government. While honest debate may...
Living truth for a post-Christian world: The message of Francis Schaeffer and Karol Wojtyla
To my knowledge, the evangelical Protestant Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984) and the evangelical Roman Catholic Karol Wojtyla (1920-) never met. Francis Schaeffer, founder of L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland, was a Christian intellectual and cultural critic, practical theologian, author, noted speaker, and evangelist, whose ministry in the last half of the twentieth century incited worldwide study and discipleship centers. Karol Wojtyla (1920-) is a philosopher, university professor, theologian, priest, bishop, cardinal, author, noted speaker, evangelist, and, last but not least, the...
Latin America imprisoned in liberation theology
Old-style leftist politics is making a eback in Latin America. In Brazil, an avowed socialist and anti-capitalist has taken power in a landslide vote. Luiz Lula da Silva’s first day as president ended with a dinner with Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Also joining him was Venezuela president Hugo Chavez, who is pursuing a leftist agenda and promising a full crackdown on “terrorists” and “traitors” who oppose him. In Ecuador, new president Lucio Gutierrez, a retired army colonel, holds similar political...
Christendom, Power, and Authority
The conceptual distinction between the exercise of authority and the exercise of power provides an essential guide to understanding the present and future status of Christendom, which has not been abolished but, rather, has taken on new forms in our times. The Second Vatican Council, in its document Lumen Gentium, clarified that the Kingdom of God is not a place or a government, much less an earthly end-state arrived at through the political process. Instead, it is “established by...
A primer for love: Personalist ethics
One need not search far to find the supreme ethic by which we should evaluate all of our actions. The holy Scripture is clear that we must love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind, and that we must love our neighbors as ourselves (Matt. 22:36, 39). Love for God and neighbor must serve as the basis for any ethics. Here I am primarily interested in examining the...
Free Religion
It is worth remembering what George Washington said in his farewell address about religion: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports …. Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be...
The Good of Affluence
“We are going to see a revival in this country, and it's going to be led by rich people.” — Michael Novak, cited in Dinesh D' Souza's Virtue of Prosperity The title of my ing book, The Good of Affluence: Seeking God in a Culture of Wealth, might raise an eyebrow or two. Readers who are at all familiar with contemporary Christian scholarship on the subject of economic life under capitalism will immediately catch that my approach is not...
Categorical imperatives impair Christianity in culture
Contrary to the libertine assumptions pervading our contemporary society, property rights, liberty, and even life itself – the bases of any functional economic order – do not exist as ends in themselves, but rather as elements within a greater framework of religious faith and morality. Historically, Christianity established this religious and moral framework for Western culture. Today, to the extent a larger framework is recognized at all, contemporary advocates, both Christian and secular, tend to rely on human dignity...
The Cross of Christ for 8 Mile Road
As anyone who lives in the Detroit Metropolitan area knows, the divisions between city and suburbs, which run along race and class lines, are deep and seemingly intractable. These divisions are what make a Catholic high school in Detroit, at one of which I am a teacher,so different from a Catholic high school in the suburbs. Like Rabbit, the protagonist in the recently debuted movie 8 Mile, my students hail from the south monly considered the “wrong” – side...
Money and morality: The Christian moral tradition and the best monetary regime
The economic difficulties of the past several years in the United States have led more and more people to take an active interest in monetary policy and in the Federal Reserve System. Many possess an inchoate sense that there must be a connection between past monetary policy and our current doldrums. At a time when monetary matters are attracting so much attention, therefore, it may be particularly opportune to consider the moral dimensions of the present monetary regime. As...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved