My Dear Sister in Christ,
You may not know this about me but I am kind of a science geek! I used to teach junior and senior high science in Thailand and often when I was hanging with my students I would make some kind of science reference to what we were doing and not even realize it. It would make them laugh and call me a nerd. Yet as I was thinking about kindness for this month, all that came to mind was physics. Yes, physics; specifically, action and reaction equations. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. Remember those? Often they had cartoon pictures of bats hitting a baseball, trains connecting to other trains, and so forth. I really enjoyed figuring those out. So as I was doing some studying on kindness, I discovered that kindness has its own action/reaction equation…and it doesn’t make sense!
Often we tell our children to be kind to others and we also desire to speak kindly to our friends and husbands…but what does that mean? I normally think if the action done to me is kindness, my reaction is kindness. If the action toward me is mean spirited, sadly, I sometimes choose to react in the same manner. The Bible speaks of the kindness of the Lord with a different equation. The kindness of the Lord is toward believers and it comes after the Lord has shown us the depravity of our sin. So our action is dwelling in sin and the Lord’s reaction is kindness. Wow. This has made me view kindness in a new way. It is not only “being nice” to someone, it is overlooking the wrong that they have done to you and treating them better than they deserve. Now, when I read that the kindness of the Lord brings us to repentance (Romans 2:4), it makes sense!
Kindness is part of the fruit of the spirit and we are told to put on kindness in Colossians 3:12. We must take the example of how the Lord showed us kindness (by sending us Christ when we were at our worst, to die on a cross and rise again to pay for our sin debt) and show it to others. Wow. When my husband, daughter, friend, or neighbor is at their worst, do I show kindness or frustration? Do I give them what they deserve or do I follow Christ’s example and give them what they don’t deserve? That is so hard! We can’t do that on our own. This is why its part of the fruit of the spirit. It is the spirit compelling us to be like Christ. This Spirit’s action/reaction equation may not make sense, but it changes lives…including our own.
Your science geek sister in Christ,
Colleen