God Says I'm (to be) Kind

What does it mean and look like to be kind?

The definition of being kind, according to Merriam-Webster, is to hold a sympathetic helpful nature, forbearing nature; gentle. It also means to be affectionate, loving, attentive, considerate, and thoughtful.

The Hebrew definition is hesed, which is an action word - to do something. It's showing mercy and compassion. It's faithful and steadfast love toward someone. It means to be good.

In Greek, to be kind means brotherly love, to be agreeable, appropriate (hmm, that's interesting), to be fitting, virtuous, and respectable. Just slightly different than the Hebrew and English definitions, but I thought it was important to add this here.

I wanted to touch on something in this post that our culture has missed the target on (are we surprised?) That is the idea that kindness is synonymous with being nice. It's similar, especially when you compare it to the greek meanings, but it's totally different from the Hebrew definition.

The definition of nice is polite, pleasing, agreeable, appropriate, fitting, and respectable. Nice is more of a 'go along to get along' idea, whereas kindness is a go beyond nice and go out of your way to SHOW kindness.

I also don't find the command to be 'nice' in the bible.

It's often difficult to find kindness today, and that's why we must show kindness toward others; even if they're being jerks. Again, as I stated in my blog post about being humble, this doesn't mean we should accept abuse from others.

Sometimes kindness looks like keeping our mouths shut when we wanna say something, and sometimes it looks like speaking truth in love when normally we'd just "go along to get along". Sometimes being kind is going out of your way to show love and support to a hurting friend, and sometimes kindness looks like saying no to a family member who is asking for money.... again... and you know they're going to use it for drugs, alcohol, or porn.

Kindness looks nearly identical to loving others, and the way we learn to love and show kindness is by deepening our relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ. He was kind, yet He flipped tables. He was kind, yet He told the woman caught in adultery to knock it off. But Jesus offended a lot - A LOT - of people. He wasn't nice; He was kind.

I'll talk more about being kind on YouTube or Rumble soon - subscribe to my channels so that you can get notified when I post. Enjoy!