Kindness – Part Two

“….the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man….” Titus 3: 4

Kindness makes a person feel good whether it is done to him or by him.

Affirmation is a type of kindness. Let me appeal to you to become one who affirms other. Find something kind to say to people you encounter. You can find something, and some good way to say it if you look for it.  

Wives are masters at this art. One wife, given an absolutely unusable and unwanted birthday gift, responded, “You got me exactly what I needed to exchange for what I want.”

Learn and speak the vocabulary of kindness — nobody resents kind words.

You can be sure that every person you meet is fighting a difficult battle. Kindness will help them win.

A kind word picks up a man when trouble weighs him down.

In considering kindness it is wise to consider what it isn’t.

          1.  It isn’t always agreeing with a person. It is how you agree or disagree.  It is disagreeing without being disagreeable.

          2.  It isn’t always doing what a person wants you to do. It is how you say “no.”

          3.  It isn’t always giving a person what they want. The kindest thing might be to not give them what they want in a kind manner. 

          4.  It isn’t to be confused with cowardice. When expedient, a kind person isn’t afraid to confront a person or position out of sync with the will and word of God. Kindness has to do with the way in which the confrontation is conducted.

          5.  It isn’t, on behalf of a parent, a refusal to discipline. It has to do with the manner and means of discipline. Jesus reproved and corrected the faults of His disciples, but He did it with kindness.

Though always kind to us, God doesn’t always agree with us, do what we want, or give us what we want.

Be prepared to be considered by some folks to be classified as unkind if you don’t agree with them, if you don’t do what they want, and if you don’t give them what they ask no matter how kind you are. 

Are you confident and at ease enough to show kindness when others aren’t? Do you have enough love, joy, peace, and longsuffering to let kindness become a character trait?

Don’t expect to enjoy life if you keep the milk of human kindness all bottled up.

Make it a daily habit to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you.” (Ephesians 4: 32)