Do you struggle to be kind?
Most of us want to be kind, but hurry, stress, wounds, and self-protection can slowly train us to treat people like interruptions.
The World Trains Us to Be Hard
There’s a story told about Vladimir Lenin that has stuck with me over the years. Lenin had given himself so completely to his revolutionary work that, over time, he seemed to lose the ordinary tenderness that makes one human. One night, his wife, Krupskaya, was exhausted from sitting beside her dying mother. She asked Lenin, who was still working nearby, to wake her if her mother needed her.
The next morning, she woke up and found that her mother had died. Distraught, she asked Lenin why he had not woken her. According to the story, Lenin replied, “You told me to wake you if your mother needed you. She died. She didn’t need you.”
That story seems to take cruelty to a whole new level. However, before we make Lenin the villain, we should be honest. The world trains us in that kind of hardness all the time. We are all capable of the same level of cruelty as Lenin.
We may not say something as cold or extreme, but we know what it is to become busy enough, driven enough, tired enough, or self-protective enough that people become interruptions. Their pain becomes inconvenient. Their needs become a burden.
Kindness is not high on the list of virtues our world celebrates. We admire strength, success, confidence, toughness, and the ability to get things done. In that kind of world, kindness can sound soft, naïve, and something nice people do when they have extra time.
However, according to Jesus, kindness is not weakness. Kindness is strength under the control of love.
Why Does Kindness Feel Costly?
Part of the reason kindness is hard for us is because kindness usually costs us something. Whether that is time, attention, convenience, or even emotional energy.
Sometimes it costs you your pride, because kindness means you don’t get to say the cutting thing you were clever enough to think of. Sometimes it costs comfort, because kindness means you notice someone you would rather ignore. Sometimes it costs control, because kindness interrupts the schedule you were trying to protect.
The costliness of kindness is why we often admire kindness in theory but avoid it in practice. We like the idea of being kind until kindness requires us to slow down. We like the idea of being compassionate until compassion puts a real person in front of us with a real need at the wrong time.
And yet, think about the people who have marked your life most deeply. Very often, they were not the people who impressed you the most. They were the people who were kind to you when they did not have to be. Someone who noticed you, listened when you needed a friend, made room when in their life for you when you were a wreck, spoke gently and encouraging words when all you felt was judgment, and came near when others kept walking.
A single act of kindness can stay with a person for years because kindness says, “You are not invisible. Your pain is not an inconvenience. You matter.”
That is why kindness is crucial in God’s community. A “kind church” is not a shallow church. It is a church where truth is carried in the hands of mercy and guided by love.
Jesus Is the Kindness of God
When Paul says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness” (Galatians 5.22), he is not giving us a list of personality traits for naturally pleasant people.
Let me be clear: kindness is not the same as niceness. Niceness wants to be liked. Kindness wants to love. Niceness avoids tension. Kindness can tell the truth without crushing the person. Niceness is often about keeping the peace. Kindness is about becoming the kind of person through whom others experience the mercy of God.
And where do we see this best. Sunday School answer please: Jesus. Jesus is the kindness of God in human flesh. People came to Him who had been ignored, shamed, dismissed, and used. Children came to Him. Women came to Him. Lepers came to Him. Tax collectors came to Him. Sinners came to Him. The sick came to Him. The grieving came to Him.
Why? Because Jesus modeled the true strength of kindness: He was holy, but He was not harsh towards those who were not holy like Him. He was truthful, but He was not cruel when sharing the truth. He was strong, but He was not severe with the weak.
Isaiah gives us one of the most beautiful pictures of the Messiah’s kindness: “He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young” (Isaiah 40.11).
That is kindness. That is an image of the the mercy of God moving toward frail people with love, tenderness, help, and even strength.
Nowhere do we see this more clearly than at the cross. The greatest act of kindness in the history of the world was not a polite word or a small favor, but Jesus giving Himself for us while we were still sinners. He did not wait for us to become lovable. He loved us into life.
And think about this, the kindness of God does not deny our sin. It bears sin. It does not ignore evil. It defeats evil. It does not avoid suffering. It enters suffering to rescue us.
So Christian kindness begins here: we treat others with the mercy we have received from Jesus.
Practice Kindness Before the Window Closes
So how does kindness grow in us?
First, we receive the kindness of God. You cannot give what you refuse to receive. Some of us are harsh toward others because we are harsh toward ourselves. We live as if God is mainly disappointed, irritated, or impossible to please. But Scripture says, “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us” (Titus 3.4–5).
God’s kindness is not a reward for the already righteous. It is the way He rescues sinners.
Second, we ask the Spirit to soften what has become hard. Hardness rarely happens all at once. It grows slowly. A disappointment here. A wound there. A season of stress. A habit of sarcasm. A little contempt. A little hurry. Eventually, we stop seeing people and only see problems, tasks, interruptions, and threats.
So we pray, “Lord, make me tender again. Make me strong, but not hard. Make me truthful, but not cruel. Make me wise, but not cold.”
Third, we practice kindness quickly. Kindness often has a window. I was listening to a podcast that interviewed Mel Robbins (author of the five-second rule). She said the one habit that changed her life was counting down from five and then doing the thing she knew she need to do instead of procrastinating. So, do not think about sending the note. Count down from five and then write and send the note. Count down from five and then make the call, ask the question, bring the meal, offer the apology, speak the encouragement, or check on the person. Do it before the moment closes because a kindness delayed is
Kind People Become Signs of the Kingdom
This is why kindness cannot merely be something we as Christians say we value, but sooner or later, it has to show up our daily life together.
I began with a story about a harsh leader. So, I will end with a story about a leader who shows us the power of kindness.
In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower was in Denver visiting his mother-in-law. One Sunday morning, before he left for church, he read a story in the Rocky Mountain News about a six-year-old boy named Paul Haley. Paul was dying of cancer, and one of his greatest wishes was to meet the president.
Eisenhower had every reason to keep moving. He was the president of the United States. No one would have blamed him for sending a signed picture or a short note. That would have been thoughtful and respectable enough.
However, after church, Eisenhower went to the Haley home in West Denver. He walked up to the house, greeted Paul, and said, “I hear you want to see me.” Then he stayed for a few minutes and talked with him. That was it. No grand speech. No press conference. No ceremony. Just a busy man taking a few minutes to show a dying child that he mattered.
That is the power of kindness. It often feels small to the person giving it, but it can feel enormous to the person receiving it.
This is where the stakes get real for us because a harsh church can make the Gospel hard to believe. A cold Christian can make the mercy of Jesus seem theoretical. But a kind person can become a signpost. A kind church can become a living witness. Kindness does not replace the truth. Kindness makes the truth visible in human form.
People around us are carrying more than we know. They are carrying cancer news, strained marriages, financial fear, prodigal children, old wounds, quiet shame, and private grief. Most of them will not announce it when they walk through the door. They will simply walk in, smile politely, and hope no one asks too much.
This is where the Spirit wants to form Christ in us. Kindness notices, slows down, speaks gently, refuses to treat people as interruptions, and says, in a hundred ordinary ways, “You matter. Your pain matters. You are not forgotten.” And that matters to the person on the receiving end.
And by the grace of God, it may become the doorway through which they first began to believe in the kindness of Jesus.