Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
My mother shows with her life that kindness goes a long way toward making her world a better place. Many situations can be defused with kind words. Just think what a difference kind words could make in our political disputes in this country!
But instead, we have people tearing each other to shreds with their words. There is no thought to the impact their words have on the other person. Words are just ammunition used to defeat the opponent. We’ll clean up the blood later.
But kindness and compassion are difficult things to do consistently. It is easy to slip into meanness and callousness when everyone around you is that way. Going against the trend is a very hard thing to do.
Paul in this letter to the church in the ancient city of Ephesus has given us a great summary of what living out the Gospel would look like in everyday life. He has given us many practical things to do in our efforts to walk out the change made in our hearts. So often, we need to see what change looks like before we can do it ourselves. We need living examples. Paul gives us this.
In the preceding several verses he has addressed how we should speak to each other. Our words should build each other up, not tear each other down. When we don’t do this, we grieve the Holy Spirit.
Instead of destructive words, our words need to be kind and compassionate. Our words are not about “getting it off our chests” in the heat of an exchange. We must control our own words. We are responsible for what comes out of our mouths, what attitude we use, and the impact of those words on others.
Kindness! How do we do this? We put ourselves in the other person’s shoes. That is what compassion is about. We feel what they feel. We put ourselves on the receiving end of our words before we speak them. We pause and think about what we are going to say and the impact of those words on the other person.
We can’t let our own hurt be the driving force behind what we say. We must learn to forgive. When we don’t forgive, the emotional power of the past hurt comes into the present moment and fuels our words with gasoline and a match. No kindness or compassion can survive that blast from the past.
Now, I don’t want you to think that this is an easy task, being kind and compassionate to each other. This takes the power of the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts into hearts like His. This is not a natural process. It takes time to transform us, to heal us of the hurts, to help us learn how to forgive, and then to actually forgive the hurts of others.
But we can start with kindness. We can treat other people as we would want to be treated. We can slow down our responses. We can purposefully hold our tongues and not say the first thing that comes into our minds.
The Arnold Journey 