If You Love Them, Level with Them - 3

'...each part...helps the other parts grow...' Ephesians 4:16 NLT

A good mentor will affirm in public, and correct in private. Your goal should be to help, not hurt. When you rebuke someone in public you humiliate them, destroying their self-esteem. But when you affirm them in public you build their self-esteem, confidence and incentive. Of course, your praise should be genuine, not just empty words. By affirming sincerely and publicly, you plant the seeds of growth and greatness in the learner.

A good mentor will also build an allegiance to relationships, not issues. We tend to build an allegiance either to relationships, or to issues. We become primarily concerned about other people, their feelings, and the relationship, or we become focused on rules, agendas, quotas, tasks and results. A good mentor always puts relationships ahead of issues. In his book Mentoring: The Strategy of the Master, Ron Lee Davis writes, 'My father was that kind of mentor, both in his own family and in the church he pastored for twenty-five years. Many times I heard him say, "The individual is always more important than the issue."' He lived this principle daily and he built it into my life. Today, I try to pass on this principle to others.'

God has called each of us to run our race and finish it successfully. He has also called us to keep the torch lit and hand it over to the next runner. Don't merely be satisfied with doing the job, make sure the job keeps getting done by teaching and training someone else. Jesus, the Master-mentor, said, '...the works that I do [you] will do also; and greater works than these will [you] do...' (John 14:12 NKJV).

SO tired this morning. I had a really bad sleep over night and have woken up with bites or something all over my arms! I have these red splotchy marks on both my arms that look like strawberry birthmarks. They don't itch or anything - they are just what the heckery ugly.

I was going to take a photo and show you lot, in the hope that someone might know exactly what it was that fed off my blood and flesh during one of my two hour stints of sleep last night, but i think the poison that has been injected in to me has made it impossible for me to move for at least the next 45 minutes or so while i BE LAZY.

My camera is in the kitchen and i can't be bothered moving.

I have already been told off by Billy this morning as well.

A friend of mine broke his coffee plunger the other day so when i popped in to see him i kindly brought mine with me so that we could have a coffee. Then me being me, i left it behind. I now have no coffee plunger until the next time i visit this friend. This has left me improvising ways to drain the coffee grounds from my coffee, which in turn has made a huge mess of everything in my kitchen. Coffee grounds are like mice - they can get everywhere and are darn near impossible to get rid of once you have them. My bench, sink, floor, drawers and cupboards are  now covered in spilled coffee grounds and Billy was not well pleased to find them in his body building milkshake stuff this morning.

O well. He shouldn't be trying to blow up his muscles with that stuff anyway.

Not. My. Morning.