“Can you be kind all of the time?”
The Year 2 class at St James School asked me this question recently.
No, and yes, I replied.
No one gets everything right all the time. We can let our mental and emotional state negatively affect others through how we talk with them and act around them. It’s hard to be kind always; we make mistakes, and in some situations, we might not know how to do this.
So no, we aren’t kind all the time, but also, yes, we can be.
With God’s help.
Paul includes kindness in a list of characteristics that God wants to grow in us, the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and as part of a description of how we can practically show love to others.
Kindness is about the attitude we take when interacting with others; when we treat others with respect, our awareness of their needs and situation while not letting our issues negatively seep into how we relate to those around us.
I am guessing that we can all think of a time when someone was kind to us; in how they acted towards us, spoke to us and were thoughtful of our situation. Maybe this week, we can look for opportunities to show kindness to others. As we never know how this could help someone or potentially improve the situations, we find ourselves in.
Being kind is like shooting an arrow. We don’t hit the bullseye all the time, but we can keep aiming for it every time. Kindness is about our intention and effort, not just our success and achievement.
God bless,
Alec
