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In September, my wife and I experienced one of the greatest joys of our lives when we welcomed our first grandchild into the family. We have always heard that being a grandparent is like nothing else, and so far, we have found this to be true.
We were anxious but excited as we waited at the hospital over the span of a couple of days. We passed the time reminiscing about the birth of our two children more than two decades ago. We laughed about some of the mistakes we made as young parents. Our hearts were light as we eagerly anticipated the miracle about to happen.
The day after our grandson was born, however, I ran into a friend at the hospital who was there under much different circumstances. A family member of his had just received a difficult diagnosis and he was distraught. After spending a couple of happy days at the hospital, it reminded me that so many of the people around us were experiencing something very different.
You never know what people are going through. As you walk the aisles of your local grocery store enjoying a carefree day, someone at the checkout—the one you noticed walking past you with a scowl on their face a few minutes earlier—is trying to figure out how to hold a marriage together. Sometimes the person who frustrates you with their bad driving on the highway is just trying to stay in their lane while wiping away tears.
All the more reason to treat others with kindness.
"In a world that sometimes seems to have lost its humanity, there’s nobody who needs to be seen more than Jesus."
In Ephesians 4:32, Paul writes, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.” In 2 Corinthians 2, Paul describes followers of Jesus as the aroma of Christ “among those who are perishing.” In John 13, Jesus says the world will know more about Him through the love we show the world. There’s a direct connection between what Jesus did for us and what He expects us to do for others.
But love and kindness feel in very short supply sometimes, don’t they? Many of us see this truth on display in digital spaces, where opinions are ubiquitous and discretion is rare. The shocking and sad events in our nation over the past month or so have only been rivaled by the cold-hearted responses logged ad nauseum on social media. I’ve been disheartened and even angered by the cruel and evil things people have said and written online in response to events that should break all our hearts.
As a result, we’ve heard calls for more controls on free speech. But I think what we need more of is Jesus. More Jesus online. More Jesus on TV. More Jesus in the grocery store. More Jesus at the hospital. More Jesus in the schools. More Jesus in the workplace. The way that happens is through us—ambassadors through which God makes His appeal to the world to be reconciled to Him (2 Corinthians 5:20).
In a world that sometimes seems to have lost its humanity, there’s nobody who needs to be seen more than Jesus. And there’s nothing more important for people to hear than this: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Thing is, if we don’t reflect the love and kindness modeled so perfectly by our Lord, we may never have the chance to tell the ones who need to hear about Him the most.
