They say kindness costs nothing – but I wonder if they’re right. Kindness is an emptying out of yourself, a choice to do that even when you’re being emptied by people and pressures. We have a Lord who did this. Philippians 2 describes Jesus emptying Himself on our behalf. The greatest kindness ever done at the cross. And it cost Him his life and everything.
That passage teaches us to have the same attitude as Jesus and to find out where kindness comes from. ‘Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others.’
Humility swaps out ‘what do I need?’ for ‘what do they need?’ Answering that question leads to kindness. Christ’s humility led Him to the cross to meet our needs. In those daily crossroads moments in meetings, conversations, dinner table arguments, diary planning, and everything else, taking a moment to ask ourselves, ‘What could they do with?’ leads to choices for kindness.
Kindness is a fruit of the Spirit. Like everything else in that wonderful list of Spirit-produce in Galatians 5:22-23, growing in kindness involves asking the Spirit to seed it, water it and nourish it in us.
The Spirit’s role in cultivating kindness makes us feel guided and supported in our journey towards practicing it in our daily interactions.
Kindness, especially in the midst of conflict, is a supernatural quality. Romans 2:4 tells us that God’s kindness towards people who were living as His enemies leads us to repentance—to transformation. When we are kind (especially to those with whom we disagree), it changes us, it changes them, and it changes the situation. Conflicts de-escalate, grace does some healing work, a new appreciation of people’s dignity is discovered, and we point people to Jesus anew.
This transformative power of kindness gives us hope and inspires us to practice it in our daily lives.
Kindness is expressed in all sorts of ways—a choice for costly giving… a choice for costly forgiving… taking thought over a card or a cake, a text message or a takeaway voucher. It always involves spending something—time, money, energy, effort, and thought—which is why it never costs nothing. So we need to be filled with both the Spirit and the humility of Christ to spend from that eternal resource. This emphasis on humility makes us feel humble and introspective, encouraging us to reflect on our actions and strive to be kinder in our daily lives.
I find it straightforward enough to show some ad hoc kindness to people you see here and there. But it’s so much harder to be consistent about kindness with those who hate you and, strangely enough, those who love you. It’s those I live with and share life with that I can be most thoughtless and unkind to. So, how do we live a life of kindness to all we meet, close and distant?
It starts with, ‘Come, Holy Spirit – fill me with the humility of Christ, fill me with kindness.’ It blossoms with, ‘what could they do with right now?’ And it gets tasted by others in a thousand different sacrificial choices, like:
- ‘Let’s watch your show tonight.’
- ‘I found that meeting hard – you must find things like that hard all the time?’
- An anonymous gift given to the person who hurt you this week
- Crossing the room to shake hands with the person on the other side of the debate
- Delivering doughnuts to the door of the utterly spent person
- ‘I’ll cover that work for you this month’
- ‘Let me pray for you just now.’
Rev Scott McRoberts