Get rid
of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every
form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other,
just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:31-32)
Yesterday,
our conversation about kindness began with the complication of not being a
people person. There are other areas of complication. One is motivation. There
are some folks who think it doesn’t matter what your motive are, as long as the
other person benefits. Scripture makes it clear that such is not the case. That
was one of the reasons Jesus rebuked the Pharisees – their deeds might be good,
but their hearts were corrupt.
For
some kindness is a means to an end. Back when the Gay Rights movement was
beginning, homosexuals launched a “see how kind we are?” campaign. In his book,
White Guilt, Shelby Steele relates an incident in which a white man was
irritated at how little gratitude the Blacks showed him, after all he’d done
for them. President Johnson, in signing the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 into law,
said that it would have Blacks voting for Democrats for 200 years. There are
people today who go out of their way to try to convince others of how
virtuously inclusive they are.
Being “kind”
in order to show how kind you are isn’t being kind. It’s using people. It’s
exploitation.
There’s
another problem. Is it kind to let people believe the lies they want to believe
and make them feel good in that belief? Or is it kind to at least try to
communicate the truth to them? Is it kind to cover for someone else’s
irresponsibility, repeatedly, or is that codependence? Is it kind to let
someone do something wrong because you feel sorry for them? Is it kind to let
someone abuse you? And what about when we attempt to help someone do what they
can and should do for themselves – repeatedly? What happens when kindness
smothers? The answers to some of those questions are easy in theory. It’s
harder when no big red stop sign appears as a warning.
We’ve been
advised to set boundaries to protect ourselves. I suspect we should set
boundaries to protect others from us – even from our “kindness.”
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