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Retooled - (Part 5 - Kindness) |
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Written by Jay Cookingham
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Kindness - Helping us to treat others with thoughtfulness, the action of love.
One by one they came upon a horrible scene, a wounded man laying face
down in a heap. His low moans, barely audible, made them easier to
ignore and one by one they stepped over him leaving him to his fate.
Was this a scene from The Good Samaritan story? Well, not exactly.
A few years back I woke up with a severe case of vertigo; even with my
eyes closed my head was spinning like it was on some new ride at Six
Flags. I could barely move, but when my wife went to pick up a
prescription at the pharmacy, I had to try to call work and let them
know of my brain on a trampoline predicament. Slithering down the
hallway on my belly like some poor blind serpent (I had to keep my eyes
shut to keep the roller coaster experience to a minimum), my trek to
the phone was a pathetic slither at best. My daughter brought me the
phone to the spot I chose (unwisely) as the safest to rest my spinning
head, which was on the top three steps that led to the downstairs
family room. After making to the call to very sympathetic co-workers
(not), my daughter hung up the phone and I laid my head down on the
floor to wait for the return of my wife and the blessed medicine.
Here's where its gets humorous, at least now looking back it seems
humorous. Evidently my moaning was not enough to persuade some of my
children that daddy was indeed hurting. They continued to run up and
down the very stairs that I the sad victim was laying on. Each bounce
on the steps adding great discomfort to the area that used to contain
my brain. My oldest son walked past me into the kitchen, made a
sandwich, passed by me again and mumbled with a mouth full of food
something that sounded like concern. My daughter however, stopped what
she was doing and sat by me, gently stroking my head, trying to comfort
me—that was the Good Samaritan part—the love in action part.
In the Greek the word for kindness is the chresteuomai, which means "to
provide something beneficial for someone as an act of kindness". It's
seeing a need and finding the means to meet that need, in a manner that
proves beneficial or useful. In this way kindness is a mental attitude
and can be put on and off like clothing.
"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe
yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and
patience." (Col 3:12):
Kindness is a motivational fruit, an inspiring fruit that raises the
bar in our spirits to become more like Christ. This fruit takes our
eyes off ourselves and places them on the needs of others. It is an
antidote, strong anti-venom for bitterness, anger and un-forgiveness.
Kindness brings strength to the faint hearted and restores hope to
those who have given up—it's that cold glass of water on a hot summer
day.
That's what we see in the Good Samaritan story...kindness, the father's
kindness. When we were knocked down, deserted and left for dead by sin,
He comes. His kindness picks us up; his kindness heals our wounds and
gets us in an upright position again. That's how the Father operates,
that's how we as fathers should as well.
1 Corinthians 13:4 "Love suffers long and is kind."
Blessings,
Jay
A father of seven,
Jay Cookingham has been happily married to his wife Christine for 22
years. Although trained as a graphic designer, Jay has been writing
poetry, short stories and articles for as long as he can remember. A
featured columnist at Fatherville.com
, Christianwriters.com
,ibelieve.com
,and
Crossmap.com ,
he also writes a weekly e-mail newsletter for fathers. His "Seven
Promises from Your Husband" was featured on the Ken Canfield's radio
program Today's Father
. Recently published in the God's Way series for Fathers, the
series for Teachers and Christmas.godswaybooks.com , He
is currently writing his first book on the subject of fathering.
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