Transcript
Speaker: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control. Galatians 5, 22 -23
Speaker: Today, Heavenly Father, I'm thinking about the fruit of the spirit of kindness and about how easy it is to be kind to somebody when they are kind to me, but how difficult it is to be kind to somebody who shows hostility toward me or anger towards me or speaks ill towards me or those that I love. And I was reminded to to look at the life of Jesus.
Speaker: And to see how he treated people, all kinds of people, not just people like him with similar backgrounds, but people who were different, people who were outcast, people who were on the margins that other people would walk right by and Jesus stopped and he saw them. He was kind to them.
Speaker: Maybe the key to the fruit of kindness is to see others through God's eyes, through your eyes. And so that's what I'm praying for today, Heavenly Father, that you would give me eyes to see and ears to hear others through your lens.
Speaker: past the exterior, past the the words, past all of the things that we tend to get hung up on and to see their heart, to see their soul. Because Jesus is such a great example to
Speaker: love, I think of selflessness and mercy, being able to forgive others um for ways that they've
Speaker: that they are valuable, that they are loved. When I think about these fruits, I've been thinking about them as flowers on a tree, that I am the tree that is planted into the soil of your love.
Speaker: And from the nutrients and the goodness that is your love, as I sink my roots deeper and deeper and deeper into you, that these fruits then are able to bloom on my tree. and And I think of kindness as a very colorful, vivid flower, maybe a pink or a red that shows on my tree.
Speaker: that I'm approachable, that I would be somebody who people would want to share with and would want to come to with their troubles so that I could share your great love with them.
Speaker: and that kindness and that compassion with others. Help me to be slow to speak. Help me to be slow to anger. Help me to really pay attention to the pause so that my words might not be a reflection of my feelings, but that they might be a reflection of your love and how you see the person that I'm interacting with. Help me today, Lord, to speak a kind word to somebody.
Speaker: Help me to be aware of someone. Tap me on the shoulder. Give me that nudge. Somebody that I interact with today, whether I know them or not, maybe they're a complete stranger, that I could show them a word of kindness that my face and my body language could convey kindness, could convey love and openness to them. Help me to look out for those people in my daily life so that I can be an encourager, so that I can maybe be um the bit of light in someone's day that they need to help them get through.
Speaker: Please continue to develop the fruit of kindness in me. Help those pink flowers grow on my tree so that when others see me, they don't see me, but they see you.
