Delight & Be Kind

“Be Kind & Have Courage” is a recent motto that has gotten quite popular due to a certain wonderful disney princess. How exciting to watch this big production make such a stand-out statement! But, I think, that unless we dig deeper, kindness is just a word we throw around. The mother says to her child, “be kind to the new kids at school!” or the car salesman shows “kindness” to his client who just got him another sale for the day. You see, kindness is so often mistaken for niceness. But it is not. Niceness is what you show someone that you are pleased with. Kindness goes so much farther.

Kindness takes action.

My husband will crawl under the covers at night and wrap his whole body just around my feet to warm them up. He always finds ways to cheer up the cash register and prays over the guy at the Starbucks who has a sister with constant seizures and a crazy story. This man will not just brush past or drive by the homeless on the street, he’ll stop and talk and help and give however he can, even if it is a busy day.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. He is really kind. What shocks me out of my little turtle shell in which I am the center of the universe more than anything, is that he sees these things. He sees the hurting and those that need love right in front of him. His kindness compels him to enter in and give care however he can. He goes beyond watching to doing.

Have you ever heard the story of Mephibosheth, the crippled boy, in 2 Samuel? Long story short, Saul, Mephibosheth’s grandfather, chased and tortured David for years out of jealousy and bitterness. When David finally became king, he asked, “is there not still someone of the house of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God to him?” [2 Sam 9.3]. So they brought to him the crippled boy. The boy who, I am sure, saw no hope for his future with his condition and being an enemy of the king. Before the king, he fell directly on his face and called himself a servant of the king. Want to see kindness? Just imagine with what love David looked on Mephibosheth and told him that he desired to take him into his household and seat him at the King’s table for every meal. He looked at the grandson of the man who had tortured him for many years and wanted to bless him.

Kindness is selfless.

If anything could contrast kindness the best, it is selfishness. That time my husband prayed over the guy with the sister with seizures, I was thinking about how it pulled on my emotions to see her struggle out of that seizure and how it was all too much for me, who had been working there all day. And there he was, ready to ask and care and pray.

Selfishness masquerading as kindness is not kindness. When we open the door for someone, offer up our chair, or say “whatever you want!”, are we always doing this for the recipient’s good? Isaiah 64.6 tells us, “we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away”. I would take this to mean, we do not always do “kind deeds” for others’ good. God knows our hearts better than anyone else, and He says that our good acts are polluted, perverted, twisted.

How often do we do something kind for someone to make ourselves look good? To show off just how generous we can be? Have you ever befriended someone motivated solely by the fact that you will gain good status and reputation by being their friend?

Kindness blesses.

The word blessing is highly misused in our world today. The Hebrew word for bless is barak, and we can see the translation for that in Genesis 24.11. We read, “and he made the camels ‘kneel down’ outside the city”. This “kneel down” phrase, barak, is directly translated to “bless” in our English Bibles. At its very core, bless means to kneel down. In a broader sense, the word insinuates giving or doing something of value to someone else. So when God blesses us, He provides abundantly for more than we could ask or imagine. We, in return, offer up our whole lives to Him, to love & serve Him for all of our days.

So, next time someone wishes you a “God bless you!”, perhaps it will take a different meaning. For God to bless you, is for your Creator to serve YOU and give to you! Talk about kindness.

Well, and then, next time you think about blessing someone, make sure you know what you are getting yourself into. To just wish someone “blessings” isn’t really going to cut it. To bless someone is to give them a piece of your time, your love, your care, your attention, your energy. It takes sacrifice and often inconvenience on your part. This cannot be done in a half-hearted “I did a good deed today!” kind of way that is really only out to gain self-satisfaction and man’s approval.

Kindness is a command.

When Jesus walked and talked on the earth, He always did what He knew was best for His people. He was constantly going out of His way to give someone something that they did not deserve. Even when He was tired and weak, He would heal, teach, and feed thousands of people.

Being called to live like Jesus means that we are called to live kindly. Next time you wonder how you could love better, glorify God more, or reflect your Savior more; look for ways to be kind. Find a place to give of your time & energy to someone who will be blessed by it. Take action next time someone is pulled over on the side of the road with a car problem. Seek to do good in someone else’s life, not for your own benefit, but solely for theirs. Constantly be on your hands and knees asking God to help you be less about you and more about Him.

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
Micah 6.8

-Charissa Wong