This is the sixth post in the Others-oriented fruit of the Spirit series. The topic is kindness. Get future posts delivered to you for free by grabbing the RSS feed or email updates.
Kindness is subtle. Kindness is reading a book to a child or remembering to call on a friend’s birthday. Kindness is letting someone else into the restroom first.
Kindness is the #1 quality we desire in others. But because it’s so subtle, we rarely mention it. Or when we do mention it, it’s an afterthought like, “Well, at least she has a kind heart.” We say someone is kind when we can’t say anything else good about them.
No wonder it’s difficult to be kind. No one notices it – no one appreciates it as it should be appreciated.
So I’d like to say something very simple about kindness, particularly about responding to kindness in a way that magnifies it.
Responding to kindness with thankfulness
As you might have gathered already, I’m a fanatic about thankfulness. I think it’s the mechanism that motivates everything we do (or it should be).
But how do you currently respond to kindness? When a friend buys you lunch or a friend takes out your trash or a friend calls you to check in, how do you respond? Do you try to pick up the tab next time, to repay?
In our quest for independence, we squelch the kindness of others. “I appreciate it, but I don’t need you to do that.” How often have you said that? Or thought that? I think it all the time, and it comes from a selfish desire to control, to not depend on anyone. How can kindness spread when so few let it happen to them?
So how do you magnify someone’s kindness? You truly appreciate it. You accept it – you accept that in that moment, you are depending on someone else, that you really do need someone else.
You become thankful for kindness, regardless of how subtle it is.
Serving Suggestions:
(1) Pay attention. People are doing things for you everyday. You just might not notice it – or you might purposely avoid noticing it.
(2) Be insanely thankful for these acts of kindness shown to you. Act like a starving kid, and eat it up. Receive even the tiniest, subtlest gestures as you would a cruse in the Pacific.
Twitter Updates
“I appreciate it, but I don’t need you to do that.”
I’ve almost gotten in several fights with people (mostly guy friends) because of that one sentence, even when it comes to simple stuff like opening a door. I had to literally train myself to stop opening doors for myself when certain people are with me. It’s so silly to think about it now but it’s really something lots of people struggle with, as I still do.
I’m glad your thank you note post is under related articles for this post. You can easily relate the two.
Thank you, Sarah. The related posts are generated by the tags, but I don’t specifically put each in. It’s fantastic when it works out like that though.
About that phrase, I’ve found as a guy, I particularly like to feel like I’m in control and that I don’t need help. I wondered if that carried over as much to women too. Now that you mention it, though, I can totally see how it does. It can be difficult to treat a lady like a lady if the ladies won’t let them. (To be fair, we men have messed this up way too much too with our flippancy in this area.)
-Marshall Jones Jr.
To be fair I am an only child and most of my cousins around my age are male, so I may have a special type of do-it-myself-itis.
You should look into the Theology of the Body & Christopher West. Both have really helped me in this area, although the Theology Of The Body itself is rather dense (that’s where Christopher West comes in).
Thank you for the recommendation. I checked it out on Wikipedia… I’ll have to read more of it though.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
I am so guilty of squelching others kindnesses. I’m terrible about accepting gifts, complements, etc. Now I am starting to realize that being thankful is as much of a gift to the giver, as it is to me (the receiver).
Thanks for another great post… and lesson, Marshall!
Absolutely. I’m with you on receiving gifts. I’ve struggled with it because I always feel like I’m giving off false humility. Learning how to accept gifts is as much a skill as anything else. I’ve heard before that one of the best ways to learn a person’s character is to watch how that person receives gifts.
I think I’ll work on a post about this specifically. Thank you for your insight.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
You truly have a servant’s heart, Marshall. And servants both give kindness and respond thankfully to it. Good post.
Thank you, Glynn. I appreciate your encouragement. It’s refreshing.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
Squelching others kindness…you hit the nail right on the head. I have been on both ends, but never thought about MYSELF as doing the squelching before. Excellent post.
Thank you. I definitely realized this first by feeling like others were doing it to me. Then of course God shot back, “But what about you, Marshall. How are you hampering their kindness?”
Sometimes to best way to find how to serve others is to examine what we want and turn it around. Who knew “Love you neighbor as yourself” was so brilliant! :>)
-Marshall Jones Jr.
Small significances make big differences.
Thanks for the insight and the reminder.
You’re very welcome. I’m so pleased to be a reminder. I think that’s exactly what it’s all about.
-Marshall Jones Jr.