I really thought kindness would be pretty simple to learn. I consider myself a kind person, trying to be nice to everyone I come in contact with. But, the whole entire time I read the chapter on kindness in “A Woma’ns Walk with God” I felt really convicted. I had one person on my mind the whole time, and am actually nervous for what God has for me this week as I interact with this person. I know I am not the only person struggling with the same one I am struggling with. Knowing this helps me to know that I am not alone in this problem, but I feel really convicted on my attitude toward this person.

A couple of weeks ago I was having a really  hard time with this person, they were rude to me, and it’s the kind of rude where they are trying to be cool for their peers and so they will just try to push you as much as possible. So I practiced my patience and didn’t do anything, plus I wasn’t feeling well and just was not in the mood to deal with them. After lunch though, this person asked if I could relay a message to someone for them, and I just pointed them in the direction of the person knowing that they were busy and it would’ve been faster for me to relay the message, I just didn’t feel like doing something nice for them since they weren’t nice to me.

Kindness is the opposite of hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger and selfish ambition (Galatians 5:20). I am glad to say that I have been doing better on working on my jealousy. For about a year I had a really hard time with jealousy towards a certain person, and have been praying about it and asking God for opportunities to work on it. Kindness isn’t only working on doing kind things to others, but I think it is also working on riding ourselves of the sinful nature in our lives. Kindness isn’t just on the outside, it is on the inside, in our heart and our feelings towards people.

Is there someone in your life that is hard to get along with? Think of someone who may be difficult to like, and start thinking of ways you can show kindness to them. It’s not going to be easy. I will be going through this too. We need to be observant of ways to show kindness to this person, go out of our way. We also need to be observant to everyone around us. Notice how someone is doing that day, listen to what they say. Start praying for this person. If you are praying for someone on a daily basis it is harder to be mean to them, and easier to stand up to the temptation to be rude.