Ask anyone in retail if they have had customers treat them unkindly. After spending almost 20 years in the retail world, I can attest to it. All three of my children worked in retail while they were in high school. More than once, I would have to comfort my teens when they came home and told me of being harshly treated by a customer.
Our stressed-out world today has definitely forgotten how to be kind. After a long year of lockdowns, quarantines, and worry, people have forgotten the words of the Lord to treat people as you would want to be treated.
Noah Webster defines the virtue of kindness as “good will; benevolence; that temper or disposition which delights in contributing to the happiness of others, which is exercised cheerfully in gratifying their wishes, supplying their wants or alleviating their distresses; benignity of nature. Kindness ever accompanies love.”
Kindness is simply the outward action of a changed heart. All of our actions and speech comes from the heart of a man. Our sinful and broken hearts ooze hatred, curses and bitterness. Jesus stated in Matthew 15:18-19, “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” The Lord goes to the “heart” of the matter – the things that emanate out of our mouths and invoke our hands to action come directly from the corrupted heart of a sinful man. King David pleaded with the Lord in Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Ezekiel declared in Ezekiel 36:26 that God could change our hearts through His redemption and forgiveness that is offered through Jesus Christ, His Son, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Unfortunately, God’s children still at times forget to be kind. They return to the old ways of doing things and allow themselves to lash out unkindly. Paul admonishes the Christian in Ephesians 4:31-32 to, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” Christ is our standard. His love and mercy toward us inspire us to treat others as He has treated us. Jesus showed kindness while we were broken sinners, living lives of bitterness and hatred. Jesus was kind to us while our mouths spouted angry and hateful words. The child of God must always be thoughtful, no matter what others might do.
Within the beauty of kindness is the need to forgive. The Word of God states in Colossians 3:12-13, “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.” Perhaps people have forgotten that we are called to forgive others as God has forgiven them. Unkindness is the outward expression of an unforgiving heart. People hurt others. You will hurt someone. It is impossible to live life without being hurt. The only way to survive these hurts is to be quick to forgive. If we do not forgive and continue to harbor hatred in our hearts, we will be consumed with bitterness. Bitterness does not mix well with kindness.
Everyone needs to consider their actions in everyday situations. Only when we confront our unkind acts and change our ways can we be as Christ is.
Am I a kind person?
Do I have a problem with kindness?
Have I failed to reflect the kindness of the Lord in my life?
Do my relationships suffer from my lack of kindness?
Instead of bellyaching about this unkind world, let’s change it by our kind acts. Kind acts are way more powerful than being treated unkindly. Leave people better off than the way you found them.
Remember the words of Mark Twain. “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
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