The Fruitful Life: Kindness—The Act of Bothering

Kindness comes often—not in large epic moments, but rather in tiny gestures:

• Paying for someone’s coffee
• Loaning a neighbor a tool or a cup of sugar
• Letting someone go in front of you in line
• Offering a smile

Consider for a moment . . . what was the last small act of kindness that someone did for you?

It makes our days brighter and our lives a richer, less isolated, when someone we work with, someone we live with, or someone we meet on the street offers kindness, rather than harshness or complacency in a world inundated with harshness and complacency.

Kindness, like so much else, originates with God. Kindness is part of God’s nature. Isn’t it cool that God brings His characteristics into our lives by His Spirit? It amazes me that He bothers with us at all, but that’s who He is—

the God Who Bothers.

Have you ever been struck nearly in the face with a door someone failed to hold open for you as you passed behind them? While we’d often label this as rudeness and incivility, internally, when we experience this gap of kindness, it feels like more like disregard. When someone fails to notice us, in their hurriedness or in their selfishness, we take it personally. Deep down, those old feelings of less than, cast aside, or left out are stoked and come to the surface. This is why we care so much when someone cuts us off in traffic or when someone ignores our greeting of “Hello!”

When I sit down and get to know God a little bit more, when I converse with Him in my daily life, just like I converse with my spouse or my neighbor, I’m more likely to see His kindness.

Loving-kindness is an old-fashioned term we don’t use a lot anymore, but it’s a perfect term to describe God’s posture toward us in Jesus Christ. Psalm 36:7 proclaims this kindness we see in God, as our refuge. Even in our transgressions, our mistakes, our hurried lives, and the transgressions of others as well, we find kindness through Jesus:

“How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.”

God bothers with us, because He loves us.

We then, in turn, bother with those whom He created. Because we have a God Who Bothers, we are a People Who Bother. God is so kind. God wants to show all people kindness, and show it in technicolor, so He does that through you and me.

We can wait for those moments of kindness to find us, or we can actively engage in them for Him. Often, incidences of kindness in the Bible are of people going out of their way to bother for someone else. One of my favorite narratives in the Bible is of a young man named Mephibosheth. If you can’t pronounce that as you read it, there’s no shame—it’s Hebrew and most of us struggle to make those sounds come out right. (Sometimes, kindness is in giving ourselves grace, just as much as it’s in giving those around us grace!)

Mephibosheth (meh-FIHB-o-shehth): son of Jonathan, grandson of Saul 

We meet this young man, this child, really, in 2 Samuel 4:4:

“Jonathan, the son of Saul, had a son who was crippled in his feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and his nurse took him up and fled, and as she fled in her haste, he fell and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth.”

Mephibosheth was injured in an accident because someone was trying to keep him safe. When kingdoms topple, rarely is the leaving party treated well, and often they are treated to death. This nurse was trying to save a small innocent boy’s life, likely risking her own. She bothered when she could have bailed.

Kindness in Daily Life Question 1: When and how can we bother rather than bail today?

Next up in 2 Samuel, David is anointed King of Israel, conquers some enemies, brings the thing which most clearly represents God’s presence back to Israel, argues with his wife, has some more victories, and comes home to rest. In other words, life happens, life moves forward, just as life does for us. But in 2 Samuel 9, David sits back and asks a question, which might also be our question:

Kindness in Daily Life Question 2: How might I show kindness today?

David took it a step further. Second Samuel 9:1 reads,

And David said, “Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”

David, rather than simply asking how to show kindness to someone he liked, someone who had been kind to him, proactively sought to show kindness in places where kindness had not been previously found, particularly toward him.

Kindness in Daily Life Question 3: How might I share kindness with someone who has hurt me? Or, how might I show kindness in places of unkindness?

Yikes.

This is one of those places where I tend to say to the Lord, “Do not ask this thing of me. It is too hard.” And God replies . . . “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18, Jeremiah 32, Luke 18). This is where God’s kindness really starts to come alive. God’s breed of kindness is not like ours. It doesn’t require reciprocity. It only requires His redemption. God sent Jesus to fill in the gaps of our unholiness, our unwillingness, and our heartache. The story of Mephibosheth awakens deep in our souls the awareness of the kindness we ourselves have received.

We can read the narrative of Mephibosheth and find joy in David’s kindness toward him and be in awe of David’s kindness. Or, we can read the narrative of Mephibosheth and find ourselves in it. Try it. Read 2 Samuel 9:1–13 and imagine yourself in the place of Mephibosheth and God in the place of King David.