Humbled by kindness

It has been quite an eye opening few weeks lately, in a positive way though. It's been amazing the way kindness has been shown to me in my life. In some ways its by new friends, in other ways by close friends and in more surprising ways, by people I don't even know. It's been a humbling experience and sometimes I have to take a step back and say "wow". I've been shown so much that sometimes it becomes confusing; why am I receiving all this kindness? I don't truly understand it but I know that God is gracious, that is certain.

I was looking through the Bible earlier to find some good words on kindness and I came across this in 2 Peter 1:5-6 where it talks about how we should live our lives based on everything that God has blessed us with. Specifically it reads: "For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love." In this verse, there's a chain of different behaviours, where one leads to another with the final result being love. We as Christians are called to have love, to show love and to be love. And according to that verse, one of the key connections to get to that love is the concept of kindness.

I know that I have to show this more in my own life. In general, I'd like to think that I'm a jovial, laid-back, and joyous guy (I wonder if I come across this way though?). You'll often find me smiling and laughing more than I am sulking or balking. Back in the day, I was the happy breed of emo kid! But at the same time, I know I can be a quiet and shy person, which can really hurt my attempts to show kindness. And so if I'm not showing kindness, how can I truly say that I'm being loving? This past month, I've been keeping this in mind more and letting down my own guard to show kindness and warmness. It's still a work in progress but already I'm seeing the results, not only in myself, but with the people surrounding me.

Last week I was with a few friends on a late Tuesday night at Starbucks talking about our faith and how we are as followers of Christ. What stood out to me in our conversation was this idea of a dichotomy in the human behaviour stemming from the choices we make. For example, if you're angry for whatever reason, you can choose to exert that anger on others, ruining their day and making them angry. They in turn can take out their anger on someone else and so forth, creating a domino-like effect of fire and brimstone. However, on the flipside, we can choose to be kind and share joy with others, thereby, making others feel good allowing them to reciprocate that same feeling unto others; creating a domino-like effect of kindness.

The ideas are similar but on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum. What we do and the way we choose to act can be infectious. But it comes down to how you choose to react. Do you choose to be a positive infection or a negative infection? Who would have thought that an infection could be a good thing!

I should also note that at the end of that night at Starbucks, one of the employees there handed me and my friends each a voucher to get a free drink at anytime at Starbucks. No rhyme or reason, we didn't know him. Kindness in action. Amazing.

I'm not a man that believes in coincidence or chance, so really, it's only fitting that this coming Sunday, Pastor Cyril will be preaching the fifth message in a series about the fruits of the Spirit; namely, kindness. Crazy huh? Life comes full circle. So if you wanna hear more about kindness, FreeChurch, February 21 at 5pm.

And to end off, I leave you with a silly picture. Later geeks.

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