The Power of Kindness

 

The Power of Kindness

My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life. We are now God’s children, and we know him. God is love, and anyone who doesn’t love others has never known him. God showed his love for us when he sent his only Son into the world to give us life. Real love isn’t our love for God, but his love for us. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven. Dear friends, since God loved us this much, we must love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is truly in our hearts. (1 John 4:7-12)

Ernest Gordon groaned in the Death House of Chungkai, Burma. He listened to the moans of the dying and smelled the stench of the dead. Unrelenting jungle heat baked his skin and parched his throat. If he had had the strength, he could have wrapped one hand around his bony thigh. But he had neither the energy nor the interest. Diphtheria had drained him of both. He couldn’t walk. He couldn’t even feel his body. He shared a cot with flies and bedbugs and awaited a lonely death in a Japanese POW camp.

The war had been harsh on him, to say the least. He’d entered World War II in his early twenties, a robust Highlander in Scotland’s Argyle and Sutherland Brigade. But then came the capture by the Japanese, months of backbreaking labor in the jungle, daily beatings, and slow starvation. Scotland was just a dim memory. And civility? Even dimmer. The Allied soldiers behaved like barbarians – stealing from each other, robbing dying colleagues and fighting for food scraps. Servers shortchanged rations so they could have extra for themselves. The law of the jungle had become the law of the camp. And Gordon was happy to bid it adieu. Death by disease trumped life in Chungkai. But then something wonderful happened.

Two new prisoners were transferred to the camp. Though they were also sick and frail, they heeded a higher code. They shared their meager meals with the other prisoners and volunteered for extra work. They cleaned Gordon’s ulcerated sores and massaged his atrophied legs. They gave him his first bath in six weeks. His strength slowly returned and, with it, his dignity. And their goodness proved contagious because Gordon eventually contracted their “disease.” He began to treat the sick and share his rations, too. He even gave away what was left of his few belongings. Other soldiers had done likewise. Over time, the tone of the entire camp softened and brightened. Sacrifice replaced selfishness. Soldiers held worship services and Bible studies.

Twenty years later, when Gordon served as chaplain of Princeton University, he described the transformation with these words: Death was still with us — no doubt about that. But we were slowly being freed from its destructive grip. . . .Selfishness, hatred . . . and pride were all anti-life. Love, . . . self-sacrifice . . . and faith, on the other hand, were the essence of life . . . gifts of God to men. . . . Death no longer had the last word at Chungkai.

 Selfishness, hatred, and pride — you don’t have to go to a POW camp to find any one of them. A dormitory will do just fine. As will the Board room of a corporation, or the bedroom of a marriage, or the backwoods of a county. The code of the jungle is alive and well. Every man for himself; get all you can and can all you get; survival of the fittest.

Does that kind of code contaminate your world? Do personal possessive pronouns dominate the language of your circle? My career, My dreams, My stuff. I want things to go My way on My schedule. If so, you know how savage that monster can be. Yet, every so often, a diamond glitters in the rough. A comrade shares. A soldier cares. Or an Abigail stands in the middle of your trail.

She lived in the days of David and was married to Nabal, whose name in Hebrew means “fool.” He lived up to the definition. Think of him as sort of the Saddam Hussein of the territory. He owned cattle and sheep and took pride in both. He kept his liquor cabinet full, his date life hot, and motored around in a stretch limo. His Lakers seats were front row, his jet was Lear, and he was prone to hop over to Vegas for a weekend of Texas Hold ’em. Half a dozen linebacker-sized security guards followed him wherever he went. And Nabal needed the protection.

He was “churlish and ill-behaved — a real Calebbite dog. . . . He is so ill-natured that one cannot speak to him.” (1 Sam. 25:3, 17) He learned people skills at the local zoo. He never met a person he couldn’t anger or offend, or a relationship he couldn’t ruin. Nabal’s world revolved around only one person — Nabal. He owed nothing to anybody and laughed at the thought of sharing with anyone, especially with the likes of David.

In those days, David was like the Robin Hood of the wilderness. He and his 600 soldiers protected the farmers and shepherds from thieves. Israel didn’t have CHP or a police force, so David and his men met a definite need in the countryside. In fact, they guarded so effectively it prompted one of Nabal’s shepherds to muse, “Night and day they were a wall around us all the time we were herding our sheep near them.” (25:16) But David and Nabal co-habited the territory with the harmony of two bulls in the same pasture. Both strong, and stronger-headed. It was just a matter of time before they’d collide.

Trouble began to brew just after the harvest. With the sheep sheared and the hay gathered, it was time to bake bread, roast lamb and pour wine. You know, take a break from the furrows and flocks and enjoy the fruit of their labor. And as we pick up the story, Nabal’s men are doing just that. David hears about the party and thought his men deserved an invitation. After all, they’ve protected the man’s crops and sheep, patrolled the hills and secured the valleys. They deserve a bit of the bounty. So, David sends ten men to Nabal with this request: “We come at a happy time, so be kind to my young men. Please give anything you can find for them and for your son David.” (25:8)

Nabal, however, laughs at the thought: “Who is David, and who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants nowadays who break away each one from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men when I do not know where they are from?” (25:10–11) In other words, Nabal pretends he’s never heard of David, lumping him in with runaway slaves and gypsies. Well, Nabal’s insolence infuriates the messengers, and they turn on their heels and hurry back to give David a complete report.

David doesn’t need to hear the report twice. He tells the men to form a posse. Or, more accurately, “Strap on your swords!” (1 Sam. 25:12) So, four hundred men mount up and take off. Eyes glare. Nostrils flare. Lips snarl. Testosterone flows. David and his troops thunder down on Nabal – who’s obliviously swilling beer and eating barbecue with his buddies. The road rumbles as David grumbles, “May God do his worst to me if Nabal and every cur in his misbegotten brood aren’t dead meat by morning!” (25:22). In other words, it’s the Wild West in the Ancient East.

Then, all of a sudden, beauty appears. It’s as if a daisy had lifted her head in the desert, or a whiff of perfume had floated through the men’s locker room. Abigail, the wife of Nabal, stands in the middle of the trail. Whereas Nabal’s brutish and mean, she’s “intelligent and good-looking.” (25:3) Brains and beauty. And Abigail puts both to work. When she learns of Nabal’s crude response, she springs into action. And without a word to her husband, she gathers a bunch of gifts and races to intercept David. And as David and his men descend a ravine, she takes her position armed with “two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep dressed out and ready for cooking, a bushel of roasted grain, a hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes, . . . all loaded on some donkeys.” (25:18)

Four hundred men immediately rein in their rides. Some gape at the food, while others check out the chick. She’s good looking and a good cook – a combination that would stop any army. And Abigail’s no fool. She knows the importance of the moment. She stands as the final barrier between her family and certain death. Falling at David’s feet, she issues a plea worthy of a paragraph in Scripture. “On me, my lord, on me let this iniquity be! And please let your maid-servant speak in your ears and hear the words of your maid-servant.” (25:24)

She doesn’t defend Nabal; she agrees that he’s a jerk. She doesn’t beg for justice. She begs for forgiveness instead, accepting blame when she deserves none. “Please forgive the trespass of your maidservant.” (25:28) She offers the gifts from her house and urges David to leave Nabal to God and avoid the dead weight of remorse. Her words fall on David like a hot July sun on ice. David melts. “Blessed be God, the God of Israel. He sent you to meet me! That was a close call! . . . If you had not come as quickly as you did, stopping me in my tracks, by morning there would have been nothing left of Nabal but dead meat. . . . I’ve heard what you’ve said, and I’ll do what you’ve asked.” (25:32–35)

So, David returns to camp with the food, and Abigail returns to Nabal. She finds him too drunk for conversation, so she waits until the next morning to describe how close David came to camp, and how close Nabal came to death. “Right then and there he had a heart attack and fell into a coma. About ten days later God finished him off and he died.” (25:37–38) When David learns of Nabal’s death and Abigail’s sudden availability, he thanks God for the former and takes advantage of the latter. Unable to shake the memory of the pretty woman in the middle of the road, he proposes, and she accepts. David gets a new wife, Abigail gets a new life, and we have a great principle: beauty can overcome barbarism.

Meekness saved the day that day. Abigail’s gentleness reversed a river of anger. Humility has such power. Apologies can disarm arguments. Contrition can defuse rage. Olive branches do more good than battle-axes ever will. “Soft speech can crush strong opposition.” (Prov. 25:15)

Abigail teaches us a lot – the contagious power of kindness; the strength of a gentle heart. Her greatest lesson, however, is to take our eyes from her beauty and set them on someone else’s. She lifts our thoughts from a rural trail to a Jerusalem cross. Abigail never knew Jesus. She lived a thousand years before his sacrifice. Nevertheless, her story prefigures his life because Abigail placed herself between David and Nabal, just as Jesus placed himself between God and us. Abigail volunteered to be punished for Nabal’s sins just as Jesus allowed heaven to punish him for yours and mine. Abigail turned away the anger of David. Christ shielded you from God’s. He was our “Mediator who can reconcile God and people. He is the man Christ Jesus. He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone.” (1 Tim. 2:5–6) A mediator is one who stands in between. And Christ stood in between God’s anger and our punishment. In other words, Christ intercepted the wrath of heaven that was aimed at our sin.

Something remotely similar happened at the Chungkai camp. One evening after a work detail, a Japanese guard announced that a shovel was missing. The officer kept the Allies in formation, insisting that someone had stolen it. Screaming in broken English, he demanded that the guilty man step forward. He shouldered his rifle, ready to kill one prisoner at a time until a confession was made. A Scottish soldier broke ranks, stood stiffly at attention, and said, “I did it.” With that admission, the officer unleashed his anger and beat the man to death. When the guard was finally exhausted, the prisoners picked up the man’s body and their tools and returned to camp. Only then were the shovels counted again and the Japanese soldier had made a mistake. A shovel wasn’t missing after all. So, who does that kind of thing? What kind of person would take the blame for something he didn’t do? When you find the adjective, attach it to Jesus.

“God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.” (Isa. 53:6) God treated his innocent Son like the guilty human race, his Holy One like a lying scoundrel, his Abigail like a Nabal. Christ lived the life we could not live and took the punishment we could not take to offer the hope we cannot resist. And his sacrifice begs this question: If he loves us so much, can’t we love each other? Having been forgiven, can’t we forgive? Having feasted at the table of grace, can’t we share a few of the crumbs? “My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other.” (1 John 4:11)

Do you find your Nabal-world hard to stomach? Then do what David did: stop staring at your Nabal and shift your gaze to Christ. Look more at the Mediator and less at the troublemakers. “Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.” (Rom. 12:21) One prisoner can change a camp, and one Abigail can save an entire family. That’s the power of kindness.

Grace,

Randy

Get the Best of Evil by Doing Good

 

Get the Best of Evil by Doing Good

Get the Best of Evil by Doing Good - Audio/Visual 

Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody. Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.” Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good. (Romans 12:14-21)

The most sacred symbol in Oklahoma City is a tree – a sprawling, shade-bearing, 80-year-old American Elm. Tourists drive from miles around to see it, people pose for pictures beneath it, and arborists carefully nurture and protect it. The tree adorns posters and letterhead. Other trees in the area grow larger, fuller, even greener. But not one of them is as equally cherished. The city treasures the tree – not for its appearance, but for its endurance. The tree endured the Oklahoma City bombing.

Timothy McVeigh parked his death-laden truck only yards from that tree. His malice killed 168 people, wounded 850, destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, and buried the tree in rubble. No one expected the tree to survive. Frankly, no one even gave any thought to the dusty, branch-stripped tree until it began to bud. Sprouts pressed through damaged bark, and green leaves pushed away gray soot. It was life resurrected from an acre of death and people noticed because the tree modeled the resilience that the victims desired. So, they gave the elm a name: the Survivor Tree.

Truth is, the Timothy McVeigh’s of this world still rock us. They inexcusably and inexplicably maim and scar us. And we want to imitate the tree — survive the evil and rise above the ruin. But how? David can give us some ideas.

When Saul “McVeighed” his way into David’s world, David dashed into the desert where he found refuge among the caves near the Dead Sea. Several hundred loyalists followed him. So did Saul. And in two dramatic desert scenes, David models how to give grace to the person who gives you grief.

Scene One. Saul signals for his men to stop, and so they do. Three thousand soldiers cease their marching as their king dismounts and walks up the mountainside. The region of the Ein Gedi simmers in the brick-oven heat. Sunrays strike like daggers on the soldiers’ necks. Lizards lie behind rocks, scorpions linger in the dirt and snakes, like Saul, seek rest in caves. So, Saul enters the cave “to relieve himself. Now David and his men were hiding far back in the cave.” (1 Sam. 24:3) With eyes likely dulled from the desert sun, the king fails to notice the silent figures who’re lining the walls, but they see Saul.

As Saul heeds nature’s call, dozens of eyes widen. Their minds race and hands reach for daggers. One thrust of a blade would bring Saul’s tyranny and their running to an end, but David signals for his men to hold back. He edges along the wall, unsheathes his knife and cuts not the flesh but the robe of the king. David then creeps back into the recesses of the cave.

David’s men can’t believe what their leader has done, and neither can David. But his feelings are just the opposite of his men. They think he’s done too little; he thinks he’s done too much. Rather than gloat, he regrets. Later, David felt guilty because he’d cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. He said to his men, “May the Lord keep me from doing such a thing to my master! Saul is the Lord’s appointed king. I should not do anything against him, because he is the Lord’s appointed king!” (1 Sam. 24:5–6) Saul exits the cave, and David soon follows. He lifts the garment corner and, in so many words, shouts, “I could have killed you, but I didn’t.” Saul looks up, stunned, checks his robe and wonders aloud, “If a man finds his enemy, will he let him get away safely?” (24:19) David will, and more than once.

Scene Two. Just a couple of chapters later, Saul, once again, is hunting David and David, once again, outwits Saul. While the camp of the king sleeps, daredevil David and a soldier stealth their way through the ranks until they stand directly over the snoring body of the king. The soldier begs, “This is the moment! God has put your enemy in your grasp. Let me nail him to the ground with his spear. One hit will do it, believe me; I won’t need a second!” (26:8)

But David won’t have it. Rather than take Saul’s life, he takes Saul’s spear and water jug and sneaks out of the camp. And then, from a safe distance, he awakens Saul and the soldiers with an announcement: “God put your life in my hands today, but I wasn’t willing to lift a finger against God’s anointed.” (26:23) Once again, David spares Saul’s life. Once again, David displays a God-saturated mind. Who dominates David’s thoughts? “May the Lord . . . the Lord delivered . . . the Lord’s anointed . . . in the eyes of the Lord.” (26:23–24; emphasis added)

Like David, we think about the purveyors of pain in our own lives. It’s one thing to give grace to friends, but to give grace to those who give us grief? Can you do that? Given a few uninterrupted moments with the Darth Vader of your days, could you imitate David? Maybe. Some people just seem graced with mercy glands. They secrete forgiveness, never harboring grudges or reciting their hurts. Others of us, maybe most of us, find it hard to forgive our Saul’s. We forgive the one-time offenders, mind you. We dismiss the parking-place takers, the date-breakers, and even the purse snatchers. We can move past the misdemeanors, but the felonies? The repeat offenders? The Saul’s who take our youth, our retirement or our health? Were that scoundrel to seek shade in your cave or lie sleeping at your feet, would you do what David did? Could you forgive that scum who hurt you? The problem is that failure to forgive could be fatal: “Resentment kills a fool, and envy slays the simple.” ( Job 5:2)

Vengeance fixes your attention on life’s ugliest moments. Score-settling freezes your stare at the cruel events of your past. But is that where you want to look, or live? Will rehearsing and reliving your hurts make you a better person? No. It will destroy you. Don’t think so? Well, do you remember that old comedy routine where Joe complains to Jerry about the irritating habit of a mutual friend – the guy pokes his finger in Joe’s chest as he talks. It drives Joe crazy. So, he resolves to get even. He shows Jerry a small bottle of highly explosive nitroglycerin tied to a string. He explains, “I’m going to wear this around my neck, letting the bottle hang over the exact spot where I keep getting poked. Next time he sticks his finger in my chest, he’ll pay for it.” Not nearly as much as Joe will. That’s because enemy destroyers need two graves – one for the enemy and the other for themselves.

“It is foolish to harbor a grudge.” (Eccles. 7:9) An eye for an eye becomes a neck for a neck, or a job for a job, or a reputation for a reputation. When does it ever stop? It stops when one person imitates David’s God-dominated mind. He faced Saul the way he faced Goliath — by facing God even more. When the soldiers in the cave urged David to kill Saul, look who occupied David’s thoughts: “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord.” (1 Sam. 24:6)

When David called out to Saul from the mouth of the cave, “David stooped with his face to the earth, and bowed down.” (24:8) Then he reiterated his conviction: “I will not stretch out my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord’s anointed.” (24:10) And in the second scene, during the nighttime campsite attack, David maintained his belief: “Who can stretch out his hand against the Lord’s anointed, and be guiltless?” (26:9) In these two scenes there’s six separate times when David called Saul “the Lord’s anointed.” Can you think of another term David might have used? Yeah, me too, but not David. He saw, not Saul the enemy, but Saul the anointed. He refused to see his grief-giver as anything less than a child of God. David didn’t applaud Saul’s behavior; he just acknowledged Saul’s proprietor — God. David filtered his view of Saul through the grid of heaven. The king still belonged to God, and that gave David reason for hope.

Many years ago, a German shepherd/wolf mix attacked my youngest son on his way to elementary school. The worthless animal, completely unprovoked, climbed out of its run and onto the sidewalk and nearly killed William. The dog left my son with dozens of cuts and gashes, all of which required stitches whose number I can’t even begin to remember. My feelings toward that cur were less than Davidic. Leave the two of us in a cave, and only one would have exited – and it wouldn’t have been the dog. In fact, I told the humane society to put the dog down because this wasn’t its first bite. But I was asked to reconsider. “What that dog did was horrible, but the owner’s still training him. They’re not finished with him yet.” Well, I certainly was.

God would say the same about that shepherd/wolf mix who attacked you. “What he did was unthinkable, unacceptable, inexcusable, but I’m not finished yet.” Your enemies still figure into God’s plan. Their pulse is the proof – God hasn’t given up on them. They may be out of God’s will, but not out of his reach. You honor God when you see them, not as his failures, but as his projects. Besides, who assigned us the task of getting even? David understood that. From the mouth of the cave he declared, “May the Lord decide between you and me. May the Lord take revenge on you for what you did to me. However, I will not lay a hand on you. . . . the Lord must be the judge. He will decide.” (24:12, 15) And God did.

God occupies the only seat on the supreme court of heaven. He wears the robe and refuses to share the gavel. For this reason, Paul wrote, “Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. ‘I’ll do the judging,’ says God. ‘I’ll take care of it’.” (Rom. 12:19) Revenge removes God from the equation. Vigilantes displace and replace God. “I’m not sure you can handle this one, Lord. You may punish too little or too slowly. I’ll take this matter into my hands, thank you very much.” Is that what you want to say? Jesus didn’t.

No one had a clearer sense of right and wrong than the perfect Son of God. Yet, “when he suffered, he didn’t make any threats but left everything to the one who judges fairly.” (1 Pet. 2:23) Only God assesses accurate judgments. We impose punishments too slight or too severe. God dispenses perfect justice. Vengeance is his job. Leave your enemies in God’s hands. You’re not endorsing their misbehavior when you do. You can hate what someone did without letting hatred consume you. Forgiveness is not excusing, and forgiveness is not pretending. David didn’t gloss over or sidestep Saul’s sin. He addressed it directly. He didn’t avoid the issue, but he did avoid Saul. “Saul returned home, but David and his men went up to the stronghold.” (1 Sam. 24:22) Do the same.

Give grace, but, if necessary, keep your distance. You can forgive the abusive husband without living with him. Be quick to give mercy to the immoral politician but be slow to give him another office. Society can dispense grace and prison terms at the same time. Offer the drunk driver a second chance but keep his license. Forgiveness is not foolishness. Forgiveness is, at its core, choosing to see your offender with different eyes.

When some Moravian missionaries took the message of God to the Eskimos, the missionaries struggled to find a word in the native language for forgiveness. They finally landed on this cumbersome twenty-four-letter choice: issumagijoujungnainermik. This formidable assembly of letters is literally translated, “not being able to think about it anymore.” To forgive is to move on; to not to think about the offense anymore. You don’t excuse him, endorse her or embrace them. You just route thoughts about them through heaven. You see your enemy as God’s child, and revenge as God’s job.

And, frankly, how can we grace-recipients do anything less? Dare we ask God for grace when we refuse to give it? This is a huge issue in the Scripture. Jesus was tough on sinners who refused to forgive other sinners. Remember his story about the servant freshly forgiven a debt of millions who refused to forgive a debt equal to a few dollars? He stirred the wrath of God: “You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt. . . . Shouldn’t you have mercy . . . just as I had mercy on you?” (Matt. 18:32–33)

In the final analysis, we give grace because we’ve been given grace. We survive because we imitate the Survivor Tree. We reach our roots beyond the bomb zone. We tap into moisture beyond the explosion. We dig deeper and deeper until we draw moisture from the mercy of God. We, like Saul, have been given grace. And we, like David, can freely give it because that’s how we can get the best of evil – by doing good.

Grace,

Randy