The Divine Nudge
Be guilty of random acts of kindness.
Every once in a while, the Holy Spirit gives me a nudge. My thoughts too frequently are “all about me.” So when I get a sudden practical idea of how to bless someone else, I try to act on it. Do I believe my sudden inspiration is God’s idea? Yes. But beyond that, kindness is becoming more and more powerful in our culture.
Doing spontaneous acts of kindness:
- Keeps our hearts soft.
- Brightens someone else’s day.
- Is a clear way for a Christian to be salt and light (Matt 5:13-14)
The Anger Paradox
Decades ago, people were taught that letting your anger out and venting all over everyone—sorry, I’m paraphrasing—was emotionally healthy. By releasing all your pent-up rage; you freed yourself of inner stress. Some therapists brought other family members into a counseling session just so their patient could scream at them.
What everyone soon discovered is that the more times people gave in to their anger, the angrier they became.
Doing spontaneous acts of kindness effects our hearts too, but in the opposite way. I can’t start blessing someone regularly and continue to dislike them. They become people my heart starts softening toward.
In the Holy Scriptures, God challenges us to show kindness even toward our enemies. He wants us to keep our hearts soft—and to truly reflect our Master.
21 If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat;
if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.
22 In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head,
and the Lord will reward you. (Proverbs 25:21-22 NIV, repeated in Romans 12:20)
The phrase, “heap burning coals on his head” sounds painful. However, my understanding is that in biblical times someone returning from a long trip often found their hearth fire reduced to cold ashes. A neighbor providing burning coals allowed the travelers to rekindle the cooking fire quickly.
It was another way to respond with generosity and kindness.
Kindness Brightens Someone Else’s Day
Just a card saying, “I know you’re hurting and I’m praying for you” can make a world of difference to the person you send it to.
Your sudden act of kindness may even be another Christian’s answer to prayer.
A Case of Toothpaste
My dad worked as an engineer at the company where they first packaged Aquafresh toothpaste. Aquafresh toothpaste is white with one red stripe and one blue strip; it’s tricolor. What I’m about to say is the absolute truth. Two other engineers spent all day squeezing each tube of toothpaste once, to try to tweak the packaging process so that the stripes came out of the tube correctly.
These engineers succeeded in their quest. Unfortunately, you can’t sell a once-squeezed tube of toothpaste to the general public. So what do you do?
You give it to your employees as “free samples.”
I was at Michigan State when my dad handed me a small case of Aquafresh. Naturally I handed it out in my college dorm floor mates. One Christian woman was out of money and out of toothpaste. She’d been praying that God would meet her need.
Can you spell e-x-c-i-t-e-d?
She got two tubes of toothpaste that day.
Kindness is a Clear Way to be Salt and Light
I think we’ve all noticed the shift. People in America have become more vicious, cruel and mean-spirited, especially on social media.
So live a life of kindness. Respond to the Holy Spirit’s promptings and do any loving or generous act that occurs to you.
God will use it to change lives—and maybe even bring some people into His kingdom of light for all eternity.
All three images came from Pixabay.com.
Resources:
Feel free to share these memes anywhere, on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. I came up with three versions because I couldn’t choose just one image.
The caption is obviously a reversal of the phrase, “random acts of violence.”
