Meditations on the Fruit of the Spirit - Kindness

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness…” (Gal 5:19). “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another…” (Eph 4:32).  “Love is patient and kind…” (1 Cor 13:4).  So why does it feel like kindness is losing its place in our society, in the world, and sadly, even among those who call themselves children of God and disciples of Christ?  Why does typing our thoughts onto social media feel like it negates the instruction to let our words be “seasoned with salt”?  Why can’t we disagree and even dispute without character maligning? To quote my two-year-old grandson, when something confounds him, “What’s going on?”

Is this really a new problem? These articles accompany a Women’s Bible Study I’m leading on the Fruit of the Spirit. In the context of our study, Paul wrote to churches in Galatia who were in the middle of a controversy about Gentiles who became Christians. Some were demanding the Gentiles had to be circumcised according to the law of Moses to be accepted by God.  Paul felt as if his teaching made him their enemy, he warned them not to “bite and devour” one another.  Doesn’t sound like they were being very kind.

What about in the days of Jesus? Read John 9, the story of Jesus healing a man who was born blind. The neighbors hardly recognize the man they had only known as a beggar. Enter the Pharisees who are determined to condemn Jesus. They callously question the man and his family, eventually throwing him out.  There is no mention of any joy that he has received sight for the first time.  Jesus, in compassion, finds the man and allows him to worship the One who healed him.

Keep backing up through time and the Bible story, and you will find examples of kindness, but not a time when all men generally were kind to each other.  You will read the example of Boaz and Ruth, who clung to the law and its provisions for compassion and protection.  But for the most part, during this period of the Judges, we’re told that “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

This caused me to reflect on idol worship.  What about any idol would encourage you to be kind? You serve an idol - it’s needs, wants, and demands, which of course, you would have to imagine, since it’s merely a man-made object.  Where in idolatry is there a demand for care for your fellow man, compassion toward the vulnerable, tolerance of others? That’s just not what idolatry is about.

Before we separate ourselves from history and the idea that we would ever worship idols, let’s remember that idols are something we turn power over to in order to get something we want.  For them it might have been rain, crops, or fertility.  For us it might be money, status, or comfort.  We might make what we consider great sacrifices to these idols, but it’s all self-serving, because it’s all to get something important to us.  Kindness and its “like” words, mercy, grace, and compassion, are all about looking outside of ourselves.

By now, you know me and a good word search.  It just feels like an appropriate way to start a study on a particular topic of scripture.  I hope, if you’re using these articles to meditate and learn more about the fruit of the Spirit, that you will do your own search. The word “lovingkindness” is found 177 times in scripture!  (Lovingkindness is the word the New American Standard version uses, in the English Standard it’s often translated “steadfast love”.)  A few of the instances are referring to the lovingkindness of one person to another, but the vast majority are of God’s lovingkindness to us.  

Listen to God’s description of Himself in the majestic moment that He passed before Moses: 

“Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, 
the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding 
in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who
forgives iniquity, transgression and sin…” (Exodus 34:6).

And here was my moment of understanding - the kind that seems to happen only when you slow down with God’s word, and meditate on it. There is no kindness outside of God, and there is nothing but kindness in Him.  The only place we can learn and grow to value kindness is from God.  Why would anyone ever be kind if not for God?

God’s very posture to us is kindness, mercy, and love.  Paul tells us in Ephesians 1 and 2 that His plan, since He created us, was to lavish us with His grace according to His kindness toward us. Psalm 36:5 says, “Your lovingkindness, O LORD, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.”  Psalm 136 repeats the phrase, “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His lovingkindness is everlasting.” Psalm 23:6 declares, “Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life…”  Jesus “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), the one who touched the lepers, blessed the children, and recognized the faith and the worth of a Gentile woman begging him to heal her daughter.

Here’s an exercise.  Close your eyes and picture a person in your life that comes to mind as an example of kindness.  See their posture, their body language.  Now see your own when you are agitated and resisting kindness to someone around you.  

As has been the case in each of these studies, I changed my course mid-stream when I realized I was looking at my discipleship in the wrong way. I started this study with the idea of looking at how to be kind, especially when it’s difficult -  to the “prickly” people, or to people who just don’t deserve it.  And now, of course, I wonder how I can be anything but kind.  I, who have received so much and deserved so little: “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy…” (Titus 3:4-5). 

When I quoted Exodus 34:6,  I left out the end of the sentence: “God…who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”  I must never forget that the justice and kindness of God demands my faith and obedience.  

It’s not the occasional “random acts of kindness” that are a testament of my love and faith. It’s allowing a relationship with God, through the words of the Spirit, to produce the fruit of kindness in me. It’s my posture of grace, mercy, kindness, and compassion on every living soul, my search for the part of them that needs tenderheartedness.  It’s my willingness to forgive as I have been forgiven.  

I love to bake.  And because I also love to eat baked goods, I try to do most of my baking when I have guests.  So there are homemade treats at each of our Women’s studies - and not just because I’m kind. But I close this meditation with words even sweeter to the taste from 

1 Peter 2:2,  “Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.”