If love is, as I suggested earlier this year, the predominant flavour of the Fruit of the Spirit it is good to ask what each undertone adds to that base flavour. What does kindness mean in conjunction with love, with the commandment to love each other as God first loves us?
Or to put it the way I did in my Google search this morning: “why is kindness a fruit of the spirit”.
As I was reading some of the articles in response to that search I was pushed to ponder a slightly different question: “what do we mean when we say someone is kind?”, which led me to a new starting point (there is a reason writing this has taken all day today...).
In the last couple weeks of my vacation I discovered a couple of YouTube Channels about etymology and found the topic quite interesting, so my eventual starting point for this newsletter piece was to go to the Online Etymology Dictionary and look up the word kind. Turns out the word has its origin in Old English. As an adjective the word means "friendly, deliberately doing good to others," and also "with the feeling of relatives for each other,". Kindness seems to have appears as a word around 1300 with the meaning "courtesy, noble deeds," with added meanings "kind deeds; kind feelings; quality or habit of being kind" showing up later in the 14th century.
All of which means what for the life of faith, for striving to live as Spirit-filled people?
It means putting love into action. Maybe kindness is love with flesh on. Maybe kindness can be as simple as putting the needs of others ahead of our own wants (or even needs). It could mean big grand things, or it can be as simple as holding the door for someone and other basic courtesies. Living as a Spirit-filled person pushes us to care for the common good, to worry about what is good for all of us, not just good for me. Kindness, is a choice to make that more than a theoretical position.
One of my Google results was from GotQuestions.org. Normally this is not a website I find helpful as it tends to be much more traditional/conservative than I am but in this case there was a piece I found very helpful as we explore kindness as a flavour of the fruit of the Spirit:
When we exhibit the kindness of God, we are tender, benevolent, and useful to others. Every action, every word will have the flavor of grace in it. To maintain this attitude toward those we love is hard enough. To express kindness toward those who are against us requires the work of God (2 Corinthians 6:4-6). That is why kindness is a fruit of the Spirit.
We live in a world where kindness and kind people are sometimes most notable for their absence. In a world where more and more people are worried about getting what they want/need/deserve or a world where seeming strong and self-sufficient is highly prized being kind, worrying about what others need, can seem a little out of step with ‘how the world works’. Or maybe we are just too busy to take that extra second or hour to do the kind thing. It is easy to forget.
However the way the Reign of God works is different than the way the world works. I fully believe that to follow The Way of Christ means we have different priorities. We are called to remain humble, realistic about our own importance; to act lovingly toward ourselves, family, neighbours, and enemies; to do the big and small things that benefit each other; to be kind, to deliberately do good for others.
Kindness adds sweetness to the fruit of the Spirit. Kindness makes the world a better place. Kindness keeps us humble (I believe it is harder to be kind when you are too full of yourself). I think kindness also helps keep us from worrying too much (or maybe worrying too much makes it harder to be kind – or maybe both).
Who was
kind to you today? When have you chosen to be kind to someone today?
--Gord
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