I've often heard people say, "expect the worse and you won't be disappointed". Have you ever been absolutely wrong about your perception of someone, only to realize their random act of kindness changed everything; they said thank you; they asked “how’s your day?”; they asked about your family, or sent a heartfelt condolence concerning the tragic loss of a loved one; they remembered your birthday; insisted on paying for a meal; they said “God bless you”; or they unassumingly said, “I love you” or “I'm here for you”.
That very same person, minutes, days, weeks, months and years earlier was imprinted in our minds as someone other than what their random act of kindness portrayed. I suppose there was an abundant vocabulary to which we previously described them albeit openly and verbally or within the secret places of our heart. And yet, every day God has a way of chastening us, and proving our thoughts and motives wrong when it comes to His people (or people in general), his creation made in his image.
Today’s podcast is titled.
Contagious Kindness
Proverbs 11:17
Those who are kind benefit themselves,
but the cruel bring ruin on themselves.
The Bible mentions “kindness” in over two-hundred occurrences and “kind” nearly double that amount, over four-hundred times. It is an act of compassion, the lifting up of others. God's word offers wisdom for threading this godly attribute (a evident fruit of the spirit) into our daily lives.
Love is patient, love is kind. Suppose I was to ask, have you been treated as kind as you have been treated cruel? Consider if I were to inquire if you've done others the same. Whilst it does not require a response directly to me, I believe that we all should give it a reasonable amount of consideration. But, may I counter by saying life is not always fair.
What I have noticed is that we often times treat others the way they've treated us (albeit good or bad), but necessity does not always require it to be that way, it is after all a choice. Yes, acts of kindness often engender the same in return. We learn, almost immediately, that cruelty, begets cruelty, and kindness of course, begets kindness. Is kindness so rare a commodity that whenever it occurs it catches us off guard, causing us to question motive? Asking within ourselves with the greatest suspicion "why", "what do they want"? As if an act of kindness itself, comes with a price tag. It does not, it is a conscious choice, as we cannot reciprocate what is not in us to do. Kindness is an illustration of our faith, it is after all contagious, and has the characteristic ability to appeal to the cold hearted, those that aim to be the first to dish it out, before it gets dished on them; those that have been hurt and offended so much, that their responses are sudden and expected, adding yet another inconsistent layer to our now scarred reputation.
