Living Your Word: TRUST: Kindness

When I began this journey of art blogging a word for a year, I had considered “gentleness”, an element of the fruit of the spirit definitely lacking in me.  Years ago I had looked up verses on gentleness (ie: “Let your gentleness be evident to all”; Philippians 4:5) and placed them about the house.  I decided that perhaps instead of repeating the same, I would look at kindness, a related concept, just to change it up a bit. After all, they really are tied together; if one is not gentle, chances are kindness is lacking as well! When I felt the Lord calling me to use trust for my word of the year, I decided to use it for my “K” word.

In my study, I came across this question by a man named Henry Drummond: “Have you ever noticed how much of Christ’s life was spent in doing kind things?” I had never looked at Jesus’ life in that way; I primarily regarded kindness as a character trait to develop. Despite one of our worship songs having the line “Your kindness leads us to repentance,” I never really thought about it until someone referred to it in a Bible study.  Sure enough; Kari Jobe took her lyrics straight from scripture, in Romans 2:4. “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” Perhaps because the line appears in a scripture of rebuke, it never stood out to me when reading it in context. I think this must happen often; a beautiful gem of scripture is hidden in plain sight … we are concentrating on the theme of the verse, and therefore miss what is encapsulated within it. As I prepared my journal pages, I found many verses with beautiful phrases about God’s kindness.

In reflecting on trust and kindness, where am I seeing a connection? As I have read and thought about the verses I found on God’s kindness toward me, I have felt a deep shifting in my heart in how I perceive his actions toward me. I have found it hard these last few years to trust that He has good things for me. I appreciate how C.S. Lewis has phrased it: "We're not doubting that God will do the best for us; we're wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." Now I am feeling an almost physical easing of my fears. I am understanding His heart toward me in a way I have not in many years; He does not just do what is right, but what is kind.  To me.