Forty Days Full - An Invitation To Real Life

he'll bring justice. You're hoping if there is an expression of kindness it is in compassion toward you the victim. God’s nature is balanced with both tender kindness and decisive judgment. Consider these two aspects of God’s nature. On one hand you find kindness, pleasantness, gentleness, moral excellence that is useful and at work in your life. On the other hand, you find a God of justice, decisiveness, who has the power and knowledge to judge us according to our works. God is able to bring both kindness and justice to bare in every situation. He is active in the life of the victim and the offender. Why get offended at the person who gave you a mint to help with your bad breath? How many others endured your halitosis without saying a word? They were simply unwilling to risk an awkward moment even though they may have had the solution (a packet of tic-tacs) in their possession. Who is the greater friend? The one who smiled and allowed you to continue in your offensive dragon breath, or the one who took a risk? Unfortunately, there are many I've met in church life who would prefer to blindly walk through life breathing death into the face of their 'friends' and getting offended at anyone brazen enough to try and help them. Clearly, the goal is not to seek every opportunity to confront and find fault. When confrontation becomes the measurement of relationship, you've left the path of love and have been misled down the path to a critical spirit. Kindness is having enough care for another person that you will do whatever is in their best interest. Whether it be affection or confrontation. I once heard Graham Cooke say, “Jesus is the kindest person I know.” He held innocent children on his knee and then drove money changers out of the temple with a whip. Both were acts of kindness.