Positive Reinforcement

Abbey and I were playing a game this morning. I was timing her to see how fast she could put this puzzle together and I was reminded of the powerful principle of positive reinforcement. The first time that she put the puzzle together, I was cheering her on the entire time! I was telling her..."good job!", "faster", "keep moving". The result...she put the puzzle together in 24 seconds. She wanted to do it again, only this time I decided that I wasn't going to say anything. I told her "go". After each piece, she paused and looked at me as if to say, "Aren't you going to tell me good job?". The end result without any positive reinforcement...44 seconds! It took her almost twice as long to accomplish the same task with the absence of positive reinforcement. God taught me a lot about parenting in that little exercise.

I got to thinking about how this relates to our relationships with each other...

Hebrews 10:24(NLT) says, "Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works."

I believe that we can be twice as productive in our spiritual lives with relationships that motivate us towards acts of love and good works. Do you have these types of relationships in your life right now? Do you need to initiate some new relationships?