Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:12-14

One of the reasons Christians fail to act kindly is simply because we don’t have the presence of mind in the moment that we might have responded with kindness to put away apathy or rudeness and put on compassion, kindness, etc.

That is, we take people around us for granted. Their wishes, their value are thrown under the bus of our preoccupation with ourselves. That’s an easy thing to do as we race through the day, distracted by so many things, trying to beat the clock, trying to do it all. How can we show Christian kindness when we’re overly tired, bogged down in responsibilities that steal our time and drain us, diverting our attention from other people and their needs? (more…)

Carry one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Romans 12:15

Have you ever been in an affluent residential neighborhood…houses whose prices go well into the millions? Ever notice how many of these houses have bars on the windows? Security gates? It’s like the homes of the moderately wealthy end up in the same category as prisons and mental institutions.

Quite often we don’t need physical bars on our windows and security gates to live with a besieged mentality. This is true in our homes, our lives and our churches. Our attitude toward the masses of people around us is to see them as strangers. Obstructions in our way. Interruptions in our lives. At best, something to maneuver around. Since we are not looking for connections, we bar them out of our lives in one way or another. We leave them outside of the gate.

This isn’t meant to be a guilt trip, but an eye-opener to the possibilities. If we bar those around us from our lives, we certainly aren’t alone in this. They are effectively barring us from their lives, too. Some of them by their words, nearly all of them by their actions, deliver to us the same message: “I’m not connected to you. Your problems have nothing to do with my problems. Your happiness has nothing to do with my happiness.” So they take us for granted and we take them for granted.

Which brings us to today’s verse. “Carry one another’s burdens”. Don’t be like the Pharisees, who “crush people with unbearable burdens,” Jesus said, “but they themselves never lift a finger to ease the burden” (Matt 23:4). In other words, don’t increase people’s burdens. Make them lighter.

The people we come in contact with have burdens…probably a load of them. Jesus calls us to detecting and lightening the burdens of others that share our lives…share our space. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” And don’t forget the people in between.

That’s Christian kindness in a nutshell.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

Frequently, in our program-mindset, we think we have to plan and organize in order to achieve eternal results…so while we mean to be kind, or wish we could, we don’t act kindly because we don’t have the time, energy, whatever to do the monumental things. In other words, we make things overly complex.

Those who’ve followed my meditations know that I often say, “I can’t solve world hunger, but I can solve hunger for one or two.” And it’s because we can’t do it all that we often don’t do anything at all.

The thing is, acts of kindness don’t have to be extraordinary. These acts can be the normal, everyday events with a special twist that shows thoughtfulness—that shows we aren’t taking those we interact with for granted, that shows the people we interact with that they are important to us. No matter how simple or complex, no matter how ordinary or unique we always have the opportunity to show the love of Christ through simple acts of kindness. (more…)

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness… Colossians 3:12

Last time we were talking about showing God’s love through the little things. In other words, we were talking about kindness. Kindness is the simple deeds produced from a heart of love. A heart of love results in what I call ‘Lifestyle Kindness’.

Fact is, there are more opportunities to do simple acts of kindness than we can schedule into our lives…and require more energy than we can possibly have. But a lifestyle of kindness doesn’t need to take a lot of extra time and effort to be kind—kindness is part of this person’s fiber. It’s who these people are more than what they do. And the kind acts they do flow out of who they are. (more…)

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us. Ephesians 4:32-5:2

My group’s admin has a signature block on the bottom of all her emails that includes: “Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle – Plato”. That’s a good thing to keep in mind when dealing with difficult people. But it’s not such good advice, however if we find ourselves in difficult circumstances. Just because you or I are having fighting a hard battle doesn’t give us a license to be unkind—and that’s where being tenderhearted comes in.

Almost anyone can be kind when everything is going wonderfully. It takes the tender heart of the Spirit’s transforming fruit to be kind when things aren’t going well…when we face disappointment. When discouragement and hopelessness have us in their grip. When friends have abandoned us, or foes are chortling over our troubles. This calls us to give ourselves over (often) to the Spirit’s transforming power if we’re going to be kind, anyway. (more…)