Kindness.....

God designed us to be kind, generous, good-hearted people.  He put us here to lift people up instead of breaking them down.  We should always strive to be a blessing in this crazy world.  It's not always easy, but we have to try.  Mark 12:31 tells us to love our neighbor as we would ourselves.  That means that when we are rude to someone we are essentially saying this is how I would treat myself.  I don't think we find it very nice when someone smarts off to us, so why would we do it to someone else.  The answer I think is that we are so wrapped up in our own lives, that we don't pay attention to anything around us.  We need to slow down.  We need to do things for other people.  People who are not in our circle.  Random acts of kindness, shouldn't be random.  People should expect them. 

Galatians 5:22-23 Says that the fruit of the spirit is; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self control.  Notice that fruit is singular, not plural.  You cannot pick and choose.  In order to have the fruit of the spirit you have to have them all.  Likewise, if you have kindness you are going to have all the others.  You build upon with kindness.  You tear down with rudeness.  Jesus did not come and die for us just to have us turn our backs on his word.  Our actions are just as big a witness as our words.  Sometimes they are bigger. 

We must also remember that little eyes are watching.  Our behaviors today will lead them into .  We don't often realize that, but it is true.  They see us at our best and in our most trying hours.  It is our reaction to those trials that children often remember.  We must always remember to ask ourselves if our behavior is something we want them to see or emulate. 

tomorrow

Just try and think before you do something rude.  Whether children are around or not, we are still the voice of Christianity.  We can either be kind and welcoming or we can be rude and uninviting.  Think about it.  Which one would you like?