Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Kindness and Goodness


Number five and six in the list of Fruits of the Spirit are kindness and goodness. It seems proper to discuss these together because, in my opinion, one is the result of the other. Naked Fruit identifies kindness as an action, and goodness as the cause of that action. Because goodness comes from within, our actions speak of our heart. Kindness is the hands-on version of loving on others. With goodness in our heart, we are motivated to call a lonely widow, to offer words of encouragement to those struggling, to provide meals to a family who is grieving...the list of possibilities to show kindness is unlimited.

Too often, we find ourselves drained by the "stuff" imposed by our culture and we don't have the time/energy to show the kindness. I think this is one way we come up short on the Fruit of goodness. We need to keep our hearts tender to the concerns of others, ie. goodness. We need to allow others to come alongside us, ie. receive kindness, so that we can pass it on.
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2 comments:

  1. What nice thoughts for me to read before I go to sleep tonight. Thanks for giving something my brain soemthing positive to work on while I sleep.
    Traci

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  2. What a lovely post! I learned the Fruits of the Spirit as a song when I was a wee one in Sunday School.

    God bless you!

    : )

    Julie M.

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