Speaking Kindness Into Others’ Lives

“When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.”

— Judith Martin

A thought God gave to me:

FIND the good in people; speak a kindness to someone about something you find genuinely admirable in them... then, watch what I, your God, does.

There are countless opportunities every day to speak kindnesses into other people’s lives. With every missed opportunity we miss out on distributing the blessings bestowed within us by the power of God for the receipt of others. Yes, we were born again to bless people—to be blessed in being a blessing.

There may be no better form of blessing than the blessing of kindness.

Finding Kindnesses to Speak

Whenever we begin the search in desiring to actually see those things we can speak as kindnesses about, we begin to focus on seeing the good; we filter out the negatives; and, as a result, we become blessed more because of joy.

The more we focus on seeing the attributes of others deserving our kindnesses, the more we see little and large traits we would otherwise desire. But instead of forming envy, we form the delight of praise through the words we speak, truly meaning what we say, as we love with happy abandon.

We may not see many kindnesses to speak of initially, but where we enter such an exercise in the faith that sight will come, sight does come.

God opens our eyes. Our ears hear more praiseworthy things. Our hearts become opened to the wonderful differences within others that make them special to us, to others and, of course, to God.

Perhaps the best blessing, personally, is that the more we look for kindnesses to speak into others’ lives, the more we see how God has blessed us, and the more we receive these blessings of God.

This is an action-oriented commitment, where we act ourselves into thinking differently. Literally, we are forcing ourselves to become more like Jesus, by throwing ourselves into the thrust of life, much as Jesus always did.

The kinder we are, the more Jesus-like we become. And the more authentic we become in speaking these kindnesses into others’ lives, the more God fills us with confidence in our interactions with people. When we interact suchlike, we stop fearing people, and we feel relationally unbeatable—won to love and full of joy.

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Kindness may be the most practical form of love. When we speak kindnesses into others’ lives, God uses us to bless them, and God blesses us in being that blessing.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.