“Kindness is the language the blind can see and the deaf can hear”

Before you knew it, the month of May is here. A year started with a lot of hope that things would be better but we do not see any ray of hope. 

“Be kind to one another”, “Kill them with Kindness” these are all words we heard when we grew up. We were pointed to people like Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi and all from a very young age and was asked to be like them. Kindness was just another chapter we all learned in Sunday school. The story of the Good Samaritan still echoes in our minds. And, we all try to be kind but sometimes, it so happens that our kindness becomes just simple text book kindness. It is so much more than that, it is something of great importance in the Bible. It is a Fruit of the Spirit.

Apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Ephesus writes like this, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, long with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:31, ESV)

How important is kindness? In a 2003 study of 37 cultures around the world, 16,000 subjects were asked about their most desired traits in a mate. For both sexes, the first preference was Kindness! People want to be treated kindly but have a harder time being kind themselves. We read throughout the Bible about the kindness of God. We all know that the kindness of God appeared in flesh in the form of Jesus Christ on this earth. God looked down upon the earth he created and saw a whole lot of hurt, brokenness and pain. He saw people struggling to find peace and a good life. And God decided to send his only begotten son to this earth so that this broken world could begin to heal. Over the last couple of weeks, the world celebrated Easter and we closely looked into the sufferings and pain Jesus went through for others. Jesus personified what kindness is. He showed us what kindness is and how to be like one. And as his followers, we need to examine our lives as to what extent are, we reflecting the life of Christ. Does the world see in us the kindness of our Master? There wasn’t any logical reason for God to send his Son. No one deserved his kindness, we really brought the suffering on ourselves, but our God is merciful that He did not treat us like we deserved.   

      We live in a world, where Being Kind is endorsed, marketed and where a great deal of branding is done. We live in a generation, where people advocate for kindness like never before. There are organizations fighting for the animals, people, the planet, urging everyone to be kind to one another. Yet, we live in a world filled with hatred. Knowingly or unknowingly we too, sometimes fall in the trap. Being kind to someone and to receive it back is a beautiful feeling; it is something everybody yearns for. As children, growing up, we first saw kindness in our mothers and grandparents, a mother loves a child, even when the child cannot give anything back. A mother takes care of her baby, and does everything for it out of love and kindness. When a baby is born, she personifies kindness. Similarly, if we decide to be kind to one another, then the world around us would be a much better place. However, despite all that we know, sometimes we tend to live in a state of ignorance. The reason is we don’t know about the sufferings and the pain others around us are going through. We think the world is an amazing place, but in reality, most of it is messed up.

We live in a world where hatred is really breaking its way through human lives, nation against nation, brother against brother; people’s hearts are filled with jealousy, pride and hate. Social issues, dividing people. This world is thirsting for kindness, it really needs someone to tell give them a smile and pat them on the shoulder and say, ‘it’s going to be alright’, a word of encouragement and support that somebody cares for them, a simple act of kindness. In addition, as followers of Jesus, this is where we come into play and it is very significant. The world will not always be nice. Well, we live in a world that hates people like Jesus Christ, Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi. However, to be kind despite hatred, to pray for the enemy, to care for the oppressor, to stretch a helping hand to the hater, to smile at the cruel. It takes a lot of effort, it is not easy, but luckily, we have something called The Bible, which teaches us how to live in a world that hated the Savior. We need the grace of God each day, and when we do these things, it can bring about many changes. You never know how things will change, the smallest act of kindness that we do may bring a change beyond our dreams. Because being kind to somebody else is a very powerful weapon.

We are placed in this world not just to live our lives in our own selfish worlds, thinking and caring only about our own family, we have been given many responsibilities by our Master, and we are obliged to do it. Because what is the point of your life, if it wasn’t a joy for those around you? As children of God living in this world, we have responsibilities; it could be something as simple as showing kindness to others, the same one the master showed us. Because we have tears to wipe, sorrows to comfort, wounds to stitch, pain to heal, a broken world to heal with our kindness.One person’s kindness changed us; let our Kindness change another person!