Kindness

             Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. (Colossians 3:12)

Having discussed putting on compassion yesterday, today we move on to kindness. This moves a step closer to spiritual warfare but without armor. I like the description that kindness is lending someone else your strength. So, after we have shown compassion by connecting with the person emotionally and acknowledging their feelings about something, we need to do something they can’t. I suspect that something is to move beyond the feelings.

This brings us back to the reality that when we are upset, angry, hurt, or otherwise emotionally involved, our universe tends to shrink to the size and shape of the cause or the emotion. The victim of this emotional fixation may not only be unable to see past the emotion but may resent someone trying to shift their perspective. That’s part of why we need to make the emotional connection first and why we’ll discuss putting on patience later.

We tend to think of kindness as holding the door for someone in a wheelchair or who has an armload. But it can also be seen as the answer to the emotional question of “How am I going to get through the door?” It is the answer of “I’ll help you.” Help is the response to a real need, even if that need is unrecognized or misunderstood by the person experiencing it. This is another of the challenges we face in being kind, because often, the person thinks he/she needs something he/she doesn’t because their solution involves changing reality, not changing him/herself or turning to God.

Kindness provides the help needed to start moving forward.