Am I kind or just nice, and what’s the difference… How to find your kindness and not be just nice. We each have the incredible power to lift one another with kindness. But unfortunately, we can also bring one another down with our negativity, cynicism and heaviness. Which one we choose is up to us. A quick look at kindness, faith and some tips to help us all become a little more kind. Peace.
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I recently was on a pretty long road trip, and generally I’m a pretty good eater. But when I go on road trips, I give myself full permission to eat however much junk I possibly can. So anyway, I stopped at McDonald’s to get one of those Egg McMuffins that they like cram between two pancakes. I know you know what I’m talking about. But anyway, the lady there was just the most genuinely kind, friendly blast of warm sunshine I think I ever got in my life.
She kept calling me Love, and she was like, you want the Breakfast Bundle, love? I’m like, yeah, sure. She’s like, you want the two for one, love? I’m like, yeah, sure. She’s like, you want the five for five munch bag?
I’m like, yeah, why not? Now, I’m one of those guys who judges food by weight. The heavier the bag, the better. By the time she was done with me, I had about an 80 pound bag of food that I spent about 649 on. Now, the point of this is not my wonderful road trip eating habits.
The point is this lady, she gave me something. I’m not talking about the food. I’m talking about her kindness. It’s like she passed something on to me, something spiritual, and it changed me. It made my day, my week, and here I am now trying to pass it on to you.
Poof. Now, I know this isn’t rocket science or really anything new, but the thing to think about is this. We Enoch have this incredible power to pass on these spiritual gifts to one another. But unfortunately, they can go both ways. So I can pass on goodness and lightness and joy, or I can pass on my heaviness and darkness and negativity, or what I think is really sad is sometimes we can just go through life and pass on nothing at all.
I remember when I was leaving that lady, I was thinking, yeah, but I wish I had that. I just don’t have that cheerful disposition. Well, kindness is not about just putting on some cheeriness that’s niceness. And niceness can be faked, and it’s usually about manners and etiquette, and I can be really nice to you and really care less about you. But kindness is authentic.
It’s real, it can’t be faked, because it comes from the heart. So my kindness doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. We each have our own very unique brand of kindness. We just have to find it. Kindness is simply just about passing on a little bit of myself and my heart to the next person I see.
And we can all do that.
Jesus said whatever’s in our hearts going to come overflowing through our mouths. So if you struggle with kindness like I do, then the first place to look is what’s going on in my heart?
Is it a warm, peaceful place?
Or is it cold and hard and cynical and agitated and irritable?
Or worse. Is it just all about me?
If we lean a little more towards B or C, then chances are we could be a nice person, but not a very kind one.
So how do we become more kind? Well, first we have to change our hearts. How? For those of us who are Christians, we have to stay close to the source, the heart of all kindness.
And then just ask him, replace my heart with your heart.
If we’re sincere about it, he’ll do it over time.
And just on the side here, if our walk in faith has not made us more kind, then we’re missing something.
And for those of us who still may be on the fence, well, just ask yourself, if there is a God, and God has a heart, what do I think that heart looks like?
And then would I want my heart to look more like that heart?
Just in case we ever want to know what the heart of God looks like? It looks like this.
And finally, a simple thing we can all do is this. Just picture yourself in the shoes of the person you’re struggling to be kind to, and then just put them in your shoes and treat yourself however you want to be treated.
It’s a little cliche, I know, but it works.
I read somewhere once that most of the happiness and most of the sadness in the entire world is caused by how we treat one another.
I also read that heaven is filled with those who’ve done kindness to others. Well, that’s obvious. But more importantly, that heaven is filled with those who’ve had even some tiny little bit of kindness done to them.
Think of the power of kindness.
So after all that, my very simple thought and image to you. Is this the next person I see today? No matter who it is, just ask yourself, what is it I’m passing on to them? It’s.