But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Every single day, I look around and notice people who are so kind to
others. For many, it seems so natural for them to show kindness. I so
much admire people who can show kindness even when others seem so
negative and thoughtless. I always to think to myself, "God, why am I
not more like that?" I know I am not supposed to compare myself to
others, but I think it is okay to desire to be more of a kind person by
seeing that quality in others. I believe that I am a kind person a
majority of the time. Well, maybe not always a majority, but I do try.
I am human and have times I become very unkind and develop a snobby
attitude toward people I am around.
Kindness is such a beautiful part of the Fruit of the Spirit and we
all need to posses this ability more. We are all able to be kind to
others, we just have to choose to be that way. It takes time and takes
perseverance. There are times when you can show kindness easily and
then there are times when instead you just want to strangle the person
you know you need to be kind around. We all go through that feeling and
we just have to remember that other people have been kind to us, even
when we have been undeserving of that being shown to us.
What I believe we need to do is intentionally show kindness to people
in little ways. I struggle with this each day that I am at work. Some
days, I feel great and it is easy to be kind. However, when work gets
hectic and I feel overwhelmed, people become an irritation more than an
opportunity to be kind and meet their needs. Do you have situations at
work, at home, at church or other places you go which present you with
the same challenge?
We all need to remember, in the times when kindness is such a
challenge to show, that someone else has been kind to us and shown us
the love of God even when we were unkind and snobbish. If that love is
channeled through our hearts, actions and words, others will see
kindness through us and see more of the love of Christ shining. It is
hard. Downright hard at times. However, Christ did not ever tell us
showing love and kindness would be easy.
I would like to challenge each of us to focus on being kind to
others, especially ones who we are not usually that kind toward. We all
have those people around us and we need to be mindful of them and make
special efforts to show kindness in some way. When we make this special
effort, others will see something different and wonder where the
kindness comes from. Through our kindness, we can possibly even embrace
opportunities to share our faith and the love of God.