Love is Kind

Well, the past two days were dedicated to patience, and we're just gonna keep the train rolling...or whatever you call it these days...

When you hear the word "kind" or "kindness", who do you think of? Being a girl...I tend to think of one or two Disney princesses (i.e. Snow White and Giselle). Now, if you've ever seen Snow White or Enchanted, you'll know that these princesses might as well be made of pink frosting because they're just so darn sweet. (Normally, people like this in real life are called "goody-two-shoes". They annoy me to pieces...This is not to say that ALL people who are kind are fakes...but there is a good deal of them out there. ANYWAY.)

Let's get the definition out of the way:
Kindness: cheerful, expressing goodwill, desiring to help others, charitable, gentle, considerate, helpful...(get the picture? PINK. FROSTING.) but this is the one that stood out to me: "helpfulness towards some one in need, not in return for anything, nor for the advantage of the helper himself, but for that of the person helped"

Okay, so obviously, my spiritual gift is not kindness. We can add that to my list of things to work on. It's not like I'm mean, but patience and kindness kindof go hand-in-hand.



So, Pon here, decided that he wanted to take out his heart so that he could give it to Zi. We're not supposed to literally take out our hearts and wash 'em off, tie a ribbon around 'em and give 'em away. It's not what God means when He said that love is kind.

I think that I have a perfect example. At Bethany's Sweet 16, we have a tradition of always making sure that Sarah does NOT throw out our garbage. (She has since 6th grade, so now we're killing her with kindness by doing it for her. Literally, I think it's killing her.) Really, she chased Meredith down and screamed at her to give back the plate. Now, this is not to show you how Sarah gets when she doesn't get her way. This is to show you what insightful thing Meredith said. She said, "Sarah, sometimes, you get to the point where being kind isn't kind anymore."

Now, there's a concept. Remember the definition of "kind"? Doing something without expecting anything back? Well, we never expect Sarah to put our junk away. She just does. We all do it for each other, because SHOCKER. We CARE about each other. We WANT to do it for each other, because we know it's not only the right thing to do, but it's the kind thing to do.

Kindness isn't about getting paid for what you do--that's called a "job". (We don't talk about that...;) ) When you think about people that are kind, who are NOT fake about it, then you realize that THAT is the type of kindness that Jesus was talking about. ((Proverbs 21:21-- "Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness, and honor.")) Now, I don't know about you, but life, righteousness and honor sounds pretty darn good to me. Who all of you Bible scholars know the Fruit of the Spirit? ((Galatians 5:22-23--"But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, PATIENCE, KINDNESS, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Apart from these things there is no law."))

Whoa. There is NO law. Think of what this would've meant in Bible times. The Pharisees and Sadducee upheld the law. (Think peacock showing off its feathers.) No lie, these guys were the bee's knees. I think that if I was in their position, I would've been pretty upset to hear that without all this "goody goody" stuff, there wasn't a law....I mean, if that was my JOB (which I abused, by the way...but whatever), and this JESUS guy was telling everyone that I was WRONG, I think I'd be a little ticked off. Wouldn't you be? Anyway, the twelve awesome disciples(which I'll get to in a later series) already got a lot of trouble for just FOLLOWING Jesus. Think about what kind of trouble they went through to repeat His teachings! They definitely did not expect anything back from the people they preached to. Except for maybe...rotten vegetables flying towards their head. This was kindness.

Why did they feel the need to be kind to others? Because Jesus had been to them. The twelve disciples were NOT sinless. In fact, we had a tax collector, a doctor and a whole lotta fisherman. They were just normal people, which is why the Pharisees were so ticked off with Jesus in the first place. Not only was He claiming to be the Son of God(which He is) but He hung out with sinners! THEN, those same sinners are going around spreading this Word....So basically, Jesus extended kindness to them, and in turn, they reflected His kindness to other people. (gee...that sounds a lot like how we're supposed to LOVE people...go figure.)

So, so far, what have we learned about kindness? Kindness is the ability to help people without expecting anything back from them.