Make haste to be kind

Life just keeps coming at you, doesn’t it? Sometimes it feels like we live in a constant, raging storm of bad news. A person needs a strategy for dealing with it all. I’ve been thinking about what my strategy should be, which made me wonder about God’s strategy. Consider this:

God’s strategy is simple. He says to all of us, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”  That straightforward line is a simple summary of the infinite kindness of God.

Once we hear that, digest it, and let the truth of God’s unwavering love and devotion sink deep inside of us, then we can say with confidence:

“The Lord is my helper. I am not afraid. What can anyone do to me?”

The banishment of fear makes us vulnerable to the gift of kindness.

My sense is that until humans learn en masse to be kind like God is kind we will suffer more than we have to.

Kindness is deferential love. That is, active love that thinks less of self and more of others.

To be clear, I don’t think you can make yourself be kind, but if you show all your wounds and hangups to God and experience God’s unconditional love, then God’s love will give you the gift of kindness.

Once you accept the gift of God’s kindness you will become transformed into God’s kindness. You will stop arguing with and correcting everybody; you will want to be helpful. Put another way, you will no longer be a part of the problem, you will be a part of the solution. So, don’t expose yourself to God’s unconditional love if you have some meanness and fight left in you or if you still need to reform the people in your life because the gift of kindness will change you significantly. You will become gentle and accepting.

Jesus is the kindness of God embodied in human form. Followers of Jesus risk becoming born again in his image.

Sometimes people ask me, “Why do you always go on and on about love? Don’t you think you’ve said enough about love?”

It’s a good question, and I always appreciate being asked because it pushes me to check my motivations. Here’s my strategy (by the way, I could be wrong): When I look out at the world I see enough arguing, complaining, criticizing, jockeying for position, and oppositional energy. I think we’ve reached our quota on all those things.

What I don’t see enough of is love in the shape of pure kindness.

There ought to be a group devoted to kindness. Why not us? Some people think that’s weak. I think it’s true strength.

For the rest of my days I want to work on accepting God’s kindness by eating his line, “I will never leave or forsake you” for breakfast each morning. My wager is that this will make me receptive to the gift of kindness. If granted the gift of kindness, I can then go forth into the day trying to be a conduit of kindness to the best of my ability. 

Hopefully, (though I know I’ll stumble) if you want to argue, gossip, fight, and carry-on pointing fingers and speaking poorly of others, I’m not your guy. God, help me with this, because I know it won’t come naturally to me.

At the end of my life if it turns out that I’m wrong about kindness being the best strategy…well, I think I can live with that.

What’s your strategy?

By the way, after the gift of kindness is granted to you by God every piece of bad news looks like an opportunity to give the gift that you’ve been given. Make haste to be kind.