Love kindness

DAILY BYTE

This week we’re exploring how God’s dream for our lives can enable us to live more abundantly. Yesterday, we started looking through one window in scripture that provides a stunning view of God’s dream for us – that beautiful verse in Micah 6:8:

What does the LORD require of you?
To do justice, to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God.

It was suggested that if acts of justice (seeking to make right what is wrong) were embraced as our first priority, our lives would immediately become beautiful instruments of transformation in the world. However, if ‘doing justice’ were our only priority, we would quickly grow weary, disillusioned and burnt out. This is often seen in social activist circles – how people start out with great enthusiasm and the best intentions in the world to make a difference. But the enormity of the challenge and their human frailties mean that they are unable to sustain their efforts, or if they do it’s often at the expense of joy and wellbeing, as they grow weary, bitter and cynical.

If ‘doing justice’ is to be a sustainable, life-long project, we need to be resourced in long-term ways. This is where Micah 6:8 is so hugely helpful. Again, we would normally expect that our resourcing for acts of justice would be found in a nurturing relationship with God, which of course is correct. But notice that this verse doesn’t rush to that conclusion too quickly. It first suggests that ‘loving kindness’ is something that God requires of us.

I find this a beautiful, and hopeful thought. That kindness is at the very heart of God’s dream for our lives, and is one of the important ways in which we can be resourced for the work of ‘doing justice’ in the world. How sad that so often those who are striving to do good forget the importance of being kind. Yes, they’re seeking to make a difference, but at the expense of relational integrity. As one little boy once prayed, “Dear God, please make all the bad people good, and the good people nice!”

Kindness, towards others and also towards ourselves, is an essential part of God’s dream for our lives. It reminds us to tread gently when we’re journeying into the landscape of other people’s stories. Best of all, kindness isn’t a difficult or complex concept to understand. Being kind is something that all of us can do, and when we do, we discover that it is what God requires of us, for kindness is an essential part of God’s dream for us, that will enable us to live more abundant lives.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Dear God. Today, help me to be kind. Amen

SCRIPTURE READING

Micah 6:8

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God.