Give Kindness More Attention | BlogfromtheBelly8

I think of myself as a kind person. Maybe you do, too. However, I often find myself responding to those closest to me with harsh words, shortness, and just…mean-ness when I’m feeling irritable or annoyed for some reason. 

It’s a funny thing how the closer you get to someone, you think you will become more loving and hope that you will become an expert at coexisting peacefully. The reality is that oftentimes, the closer you get to someone…the more comfortable you become not filtering out those emotions that can be hurtful before you respond in a situation. This applies to friends, family, significant others, really any relationship.

As I have mentioned numerous times before, Christians are called to act out of love always. This doesn’t always pan out the way we hope in any given moment. So with everything going on in the world right now, publicly and in our personal lives, I’m challenging myself and all of you.

When an unpleasant, annoying, difficult, even awful situation arises (and a situation will arise)…how will you choose to react? Our emotions undoubtedly get the best of us often, but we really do have a choice to how we respond to conflict. If we take a breath and think before acting, we may be able to avoid the harsh responses, hurtful words, and the damage they cause.

If we can choose to talk instead of yell, to try to understand instead of judge, to respect instead of dismiss, and to act out of love instead of anger…the conflicts in our lives would be resolved instead of just dealt with for the time being.

We can then also serve as an example to others. Wherever someone is on their faith journey, even if they aren’t on a faith journey at all: the more people that are out there in the world trying to love others through the challenges…the more people will see that love, experience that love, and hopefully be changed by it for the better.

So we always have a choice when faced with human conflict: do we want to hurt or do we want to help? If we make a conscious effort to pause and choose to act with love…we open the door to a better outcome.

I am talking to myself equally when I say these things. I struggle a lot with this. I hope we can all get a little better, so that we can all have a positive impact on those around us and that impact can grow exponentially.

13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13

Let all that you do be done in love.

1 Corinthians 16:14

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

1 Peter 4:8

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

John 13: 34-35

We love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:19

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

Proverbs 10:12

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

1 John 4:7