Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear, and the blind can see. – Mark Twain

In Saul Bellow’s collection of traditional Jewish tales there is this story:

In a small Jewish town in Russia, there is a rabbi who disappears each Friday morning for several hours. His devoted disciples boast that during those hours their rabbi goes up to heaven and talks to God. 

A stranger moves into town, and he’s skeptical about all this, so he decides to check things out for himself, so he hides and watches. The rabbi gets up in the morning, says his prayers and then dresses in peasant clothes. He grabs an axe, goes off into the woods, and cuts some firewood, which he then hauls to a shack on the outskirts of the village. There an old woman and her sick son live. He leaves them the wood, enough for a week, and then he sneaks back home.

Having observed the rabbi’s actions, the newcomer stays on in the village and eventually becomes his disciple. Whenever he hears one of the villagers say, “On Friday morning our rabbi ascends all the way to heaven,” to which the newcomer quietly adds, “if not higher.”

In today’s world kindness is becoming extinct, yet kindness is vital in the life of the Christ-follower. It’s so vital that it’s an attribute of God (Titus 3:4) and a fruit of the Spirit. In fact, the word kindness appears over 40 times in the Bible. Scripture commands Christ-followers to be kind to other believers, neighbors, foreigners, widows, orphans, the needy and weak, the grieving, weary, fallen, and even enemies. The list seemingly has no end.

Someone has defined kindness as compassion in action. Compassion could simply be the feeling we have towards another in need— a sympathetic or empathetic thought or feeling. Kindness is much more! It puts action into that feeling. We don’t just see someone who is suffering and feel sorry for them, we step in and do something about it. 

If we take a tour through all the examples of kindness in the Bible, God’s kindness should be the first place that we stop. As the Maker of all things, God created kindness and embodies all there is to it. 

God’s ultimate kindness came in the form of the salvation He offers us. Even in our lowest and worst state, in our sin, when we were His enemies (Romans 5:10), His love still broke through. In His mercy and kindness, He offered us the free gift of salvation. It has nothing to do with us. We did nothing. We did not and cannot ever save ourselves. God’s kindness is based on who He is, according to His mercy, faithfulness, and love.

So, while kindness is an action, I think it’s much more than that. Kindness is a countenance. Children have kindness detectors. If someone has a scowl or looks grumpy, kids dodge them. Yet, if someone has a smile or a pleasant look, it’s magnetic for them and others. 

What should get our attention is that the place where we most commonly have a grumpy face is in our own homes. Too often spouses look at each other with disdain, even scorn. Or they look at one of their children with an irritated look. We’ll have a kinder look on our face when the Amazon delivery person comes to the door. 

Teens are notorious for having a smart-alecky look. Maybe it goes back to the first family and Adam telling Cain, “Wipe that look off of your face.” Maybe God is whispering to us, “Replace that look with a face of grace.” 

As Jesus’ disciples, we’re to be like Jesus. Can you imagine Jesus with a sour look like He ate something past its expiration date? Who would have come to Him? Who would have listened to Him? 

Kindness Is A Tone

This first starts in the home, in your marriage and with your children. Most of us would be embarrassed if conversations in the privacy of our home were recorded. It’s not so much what we say, it’s how we say it. Our words have an edge or are sharp. They’re not pleasant. Proverbs 16:24 reminds us that Gracious words are like a honeycomb.

Yet, we are often louder, speak faster, sharper and shorter, even sound a bit agitated as we converse with those we love the most. Frequently, love and kindness are absent from both our words and tones. 

We know it when one of our children has an unkind tone, so why do we let ourselves get away with an unkind tone? Someday we will give account for every word. I think that we’ll also give account for our tones. 

Did you know you can hear a smile over the phone? If someone is smiling when they answer the phone, it comes through. Yet, if they’re frowning, it also comes through with their voice. 

Kindness Has No “Gotcha!”

“Gotcha” is a term for what’s often called nitpicking. It’s the action of giving too much attention to trivial details. 

The term originates from manually removing nits (the eggs of head lice) from someone’s hair. Nitpickers love “gotcha moments” when they find some little error. They’re the driver who honks their horn if the car in front of them didn’t leap forward when the light changed. They’re characterized by petty criticism, fault finding and making a lot from nothing. They find joy in finding flaws, complaining about them yet rarely making viable suggestions. Every concern or complaint is trivial (but not to them). In today’s world they surround us. It’s rare to find a church without a few. The bottom line is that they’re unkind. I love this Spurgeon quote: Love stands in the presence of a fault with a finger on its lips. That’s kindness! 

Kindness Is Powerful!

In her memoir about the journey from being a committed lesbian to a committed Christian, Rosaria Butterfield says that, as a non-Christian, her impression of evangelical Christians was that they were poor thinkers, judgmental, scornful, and afraid of diversity. After publishing a critique of an evangelical Christian group in her local newspaper, she received an enormous volume of polarized responses.

Placing an empty box in each corner of her desk, she sorted hate mail into one and fan mail into the other. But then she received a two-page response from a local pastor. “It was a kind and inquiring letter,” she said. It had a warmth and civility to it, in addition to its probing questions. She couldn’t figure out which box to put the letter in, so it sat on her desk for seven days. “It was the kindest letter of opposition that I had ever received.” Its tone demonstrated that the writer wasn’t against her. Eventually, she contacted the pastor and became friends with him and his wife. “They talked with me in a way that didn’t make me feel erased.” It was their kindness that was an important part of her journey to faith.

God commands us to be kind! Be kind to one another… (Ephesians 4:32). It makes such a difference. So, Are you kind?