Is Kindness Your Automatic Response When You are Put to the Test?

A couple of months ago, my husband and I, along with some friends went downtown to a concert. I was super excited to get out of the house and hang out with them. We arrived early enough that we were able to grab a bite to eat beforehand. We parked the car and then walked about four blocks or so to a restaurant. 

On our way into the restaurant, I noticed a homeless man sitting on the curb holding a sign asking for money. It prompted me to look into my pockets and purse to see what I had. I didn’t have any cash at all. But I also realized I had left my cell phone in the car. I didn’t want to make the group walk back to the car, so I decided to walk back on my own. 

On my way back into the restaurant, cell phone in tow, I noticed the homeless man again. A strange sadness came over me. I wanted to help him. My heart started to feel pulled to do something, but I just didn’t think I had anything to give.

But What Is Our Natural Response to Moments Like This?

Many times in previous years, I wouldn’t have even batted an eye or considered helping.  In past experiences, I would glance, but not make eye contact. I would take a wide veer off the path to avoid discomfort. To be honest, I would feel fear and hurry by as quickly as possible. 

My problem wasn’t that I didn’t care. I was just caring about it in a self-serving way. I have spent my entire life caring about pleasing others. Trying to fit into this group or that, just to feel significant. Trying to do more in order so that others would like me and invite me into more. 

From the time I was a little girl when I learned that my behavior had a direct impact on whether or not people liked me, I have chased approval. My interpretation was that if I make them happy, they will in return, like me. I felt the only way I was going to be significant to anyone was to make sure they felt delighted by what I was able to do for them. 

In the past when it came to helping people, I would only engage in it if it was on display for others to see so that I looked good and pleasing. I wanted people to think I was kind, and in return find me significant and want me around.

This is human nature. We crave the feeling of significance. But what are we willing to sacrifice in order to obtain it?

For me, I was so busy trying to please everyone all the time that I was forgetting the importance of loving everyone, including “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40). I was caught up in making myself look good to the people whose tables I wanted to sit at. I wasn’t focused on loving others well, but rather, just making sure I was impressing the people that “mattered” to me so they kept me around. I was living for a place of acceptance.

Romans 8:38-39 says, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

According to this passage, nothing, not one single thing, will make God stop loving me. I am and always have been significant to him. My whole life I have desired to be significant to everyone else, while this whole time I have always been significant to God. 

Romans 8:38-39 is a game-changer. Not just for me, but for how I relate to the people around me. It has opened my eyes to start seeing the world and people through God’s eyes instead of my own.

Over the next two posts that will be released in the coming weeks, I will unpack this verse further, tell you what I ended up doing with the homeless man, and walk through how all of us can start looking at the world and the people in it through the eyes of God, instead of our own.  

 But for now, I’d like to leave you with a question to consider, food for thought if you will…

What would this world look like if instead of living for a place of significance and a place at the world’s table, we each started loving others, especially “the least of these,” from a place of already being significant and already having a seat at the table with Jesus?