Find Hope in God's Unfailing LoveSample

Becoming a Kinder Person

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear.” 1 John 4:18 (ESV)

The parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 teaches two profound lessons about kindness. If you genuinely want to become a kinder person, you must be willing to do two things:

1. You must be willing to be interrupted. Kindness doesn’t happen on your schedule. It happens on others’ schedules. At a moment’s notice, you’ve got to be willing to drop everything and stop. Love is often inconvenient, and kindness takes time.

2. You must be willing to take risks. Many times, your own fears can keep you from being kind.

How many times have you not helped somebody because you thought, “I don’t know what to say”? One big fear we don’t often mention is this: Getting involved in someone else’s pain reminds us of our own brokenness. We’re afraid to deal with others’ pain, because then ours might bubble out.

But we’ll never learn to truly show kindness until we move past our fears and extend God’s love to people who are hurting.

It’s God’s love that heals our hurts so we can show his love to others. It’s God’s love that helps us move past our fears so we can learn to be kind.