The World Needs Kindness, Not Just Niceness
Why can’t our society spend more time in reaching out and smother the world with kindness. I didn’t say niceness because there is a fundamental difference in the two words. Niceness is something that non-Christians do between Thanksgiving and Christmas by adding to the kettles that are asking for money. Niceness can be raising billions for the homeless and putting programs together for drug addicts. Niceness is a human quality and kindness is divine quality. Kindness has to originate in the heart of God. This truth means that only Christians have the ability to be kind.
Many of us want to be kind. We want that. We may struggle with that but have to seek God for that quality. It is not some that just comes to us.
In the book Changing the World Through Kindness they state about kindness:
It isn’t fast. We are enamored with fast, the big and the spectacular. It will not “just happen” for us.
It isn’t easy. It takes time and energy to be kind and that means we find it difficult to actually go beyond our feelings of benevolence to take action. Face it, our schedules are full and if we start being kind it can simply overwhelm us.
It isn’t natural. We are not wired that way. The world doesn’t come across as warm and fuzzy. We have to work at it. It will take the Holy Spirit’s transforming presence to get it done.
It isn’t ego-building. We make the mistake that God is counting on us to get a certain point across and that is far from the truth. We are prone to over-emphasizing our role in the gospel and under-emphasizing God’s role. Doing acts of kindness is a good way to humble ourselves.
It isn’t easy to qualify. We like to see evidence/proof. Some of the most dynamic things in God’s economy are tough to quantify. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. But we can’t measure the impact for the most part.
When the climate of God’s love and presence is evident among a group of people, spiritual barriers crumble, old ways of thinking change, and people come to know him as he really is.
It is time to act on Kindness.
Non-Christians respond to kindness, remember kindness, rehearse their conversion and repent when they are show kindness.
Ephesians 4:32 –“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
The opinions in this blog belong to Tom Knuppel