A little bit of kindness can really go a long way
- Kyle Snyder: Live on Purpose
- March 10, 2021
- 792
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” — Aesop.
The queen of England took a trip to Bermuda on behalf of her kingdom. One of the people she wanted to meet was a man named Johnny Barnes.
Mr. Barnes was not a CEO, the governor, a great writer or an inventor. The queen was going to honor him for all his hard work helping other people. No, he is not a doctor or a missionary who helped the sick or dying. He is not a billionaire who put his money to work to better the human race. So just who is he? He is a retired railroad worker who stands at a roundabout, waving at cars and blowing them kisses while saying, “Jesus loves you.”
In fact, one couple was on their way to the hospital to have a baby, and Johnny didn’t see them. The wife demanded her husband turn around and go back through the roundabout again. The second time Johnny waved to them, and on to the hospital they want.
The world needs more people like Johnny Barnes in it — more love and understanding, less hate and badmouthing of others. When I was a boy and my mom heard me talking bad about somebody, she would ask if I thought Jesus would like to hear me say that about someone else. Of course, I said no. That was her way of telling me to not do it.
Kindness can be the hardest thing sometimes. The human side of us wants to make people pay when they wrong us. We feel the need to get back at them for what they did to us, or even worse, what we think they did to us. However, Jesus calls us to love one another — not to pay evil with evil, but pay evil with good.
To not talk bad about another human being, that is what we need to continually remember. If we don’t want to be talked about in that way, we surely should not talk badly about others. It takes a much bigger person to say something nice about someone when the world would say we have every right to pay them back.
There is goodness to be found in everybody, if that only means they have nice teeth. The Bible says all of us were born into sin, and everyone is sinful. Two sinful acts don’t equal righteousness.
Everyone is equal in one way or another — in things they like, do or say. I don’t like people judging me, but I struggle with not judging others. What has been helping me is to make a conscious effort to slow down my thoughts and just think about them wanting to be treated like I want to be treated. Christ told me to love them just the way they are, not the way I wish them to be, but how I wish to be loved. If we can do that, the world will be a bit of a better place.