Since we skipped last week (things were a little hectic with added Spring Break activities), today we are going to combine the fruits of kindness and goodness. Out of all the fruits, we most commonly hear about these two in tandem, so I think it works!

To describe kindness, I taught the kids/youth an equation: Care + Action = Kindness. Said another way, kindness is love (or compassion) with its work boots on. It’s having empathy, but then doing something about it. The best example I can think of to describe this fruit is straight from Scripture, in James 2:14-17:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?
Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.
If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Our words, while important, must be coupled with action in order for us to be living out the fruit of kindness. We have to actually do something to meet the needs that daily cross our paths. Whether it be keeping granola bars in our car to hand out to those on the corner, treating a person with compassion when we are at our limit and ready to walk away, or even going the extra mile to pick up someone else’s slack, kindness at its root is action. Otherwise, it’s just some nice thoughts.

And then we come to goodness. While we often use these words almost interchangeably, they are different. While kindness is about action, goodness is about a change at a person’s core. In Psalm 119:68, the Bible tells us that, You (God) are good, and what You (God) do is good. There are countless other Scriptures that also speak to the goodness of God, and some, in contrast, that even speak to the depravity of humanity. If we are keeping with our equation theme, we see in Scripture that God= good, humanity (at least when left to our own devices)= not so much good.

This fruit of goodness then, really, is about us becoming like God. Got it … Piece of cake … WHERE IN THE WORLD DO WE EVEN START?? John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had this terminology he liked to use about Christ-followers always being in the process of “going on toward perfection.” He found this idea in Scripture, but it’s basically the idea that every day we live this life, we get a little more “good.” As we walk throughout our day, each time we yield to God, each time we follow His will rather than our own, we are taking baby steps.

While we would like for this idea of moving on toward the likeness of God to be a straight incline on a line graph, I’m afraid for some of us it’s a little more bumpy. I think mine looks more like my weight loss chart on my phone. I’m in the process of trying to lose weight right now (I’m pretty much ALWAYS in that process), and for lots of different reasons (water intake, poor decisions, different workouts) my line is NOT a steady one. I’ll go down by a pound one day, and then go up by half a pound the next. Everyday there are little bumps one way or the other, and I tend to get extremely frustrated by the little fluctuations. However, if I will allow myself to zoom out and look at the bigger trend, the daily blips disappear, and I can see that the line is moving in a steady (albeit slow) decline.

For many of us, I think that our journey toward Godly goodness (perfection) is the same. We really want it to be a steady line toward godliness, but we have little bumps and dips along the way. The wonderful thing, though, is that the discrepancies on this line are all filled in by God’s grace. So, even when we aren’t as perfect as we want to be, God has it covered. We just have to do what we can do, and God will meet us and carry us the rest of the way. God’s goal is for us to be like Him, and for us to help others also become like Him. We do that when we see others like He sees them, love others like He loves them, and practice the care and action of kindness along with engaging in the practice of moving on toward Godly goodness.