Friday, November 14, 2014

Nice vs. Kindness (Guest Post November)


Today marks the beginning of my guest posts by other teens seeking to dance in His reign. 
As the title indicates, I am super excited to be hosting Maddie Hupp. She is a truly amazing artist (the below pic is a sketch she has done) as well as inspiring writer.
Thanks Maddie for showing us the difference between being nice and being kind.

Nice -Definition: pleasant; agreeable; satisfactory.
Kind -Definition: having or showing a friendly, generous, and considerate nature.

Go to church, any church, and everyone is nice. Big smiles and hand shakes for everyone. Some churches hug a lot. Perfect strangers hugging. Lots of perfect strangers hugging!!!
They kind of mash all of the fruits of the Spirit into one thing… being nice.
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." -Galatians 5:22-23

I think many Christians confuse nice with kindness.

-Kindness speaks the truth even if it hurts a lot, nice just lets you keep living a lie in hopes you’ll figure it out.
-Kindness sits you down and listens to your pain, nice adds you to the prayer list or gives an empathetic response with no follow-up.
-Kindness invests in a young leader for the long haul, nice smiles as you fail.
-Kindness invites you over for dinner, nice says, “Good to see you.”
-Kindness tells you when your idea sucks, nice wishes you well without believing in you.
-Kindness gives you space to grow, nice expects you to gloss over the yucky parts.
I’ve found that my best friends aren’t always nice, but they are kind to me. They tell me the truth no matter what. They listen when I’m hurting. They invest in me beyond what I can do for them. They make time for me. They tell me when my ideas suck instead of letting me fail. They expect me to grow and give room/time for that to happen.
But people in my life who I’m just nice with? Yeah, none of that is consistently true. :\
Jesus wasn’t all that nice, but he was deeply kind.
There’s a difference. Nice rips a whole in the Gospel and refills it with religious jargon and feel good sand. Kindness stops you in your tracks, bandages your wounds, heals your dysfunction, ticks you off with its hard truth, confronts the lies of those in charge, and charges forward towards a new kind of reality.

Always be kind, but you don't always have to be nice.

-Make people say -"Oh, that we would be a people of kindness!" as they walk by. ;) You'll also be more trusted and respected by the right people. 

If you are a teen seeking God and would like to share some of your experiences on my blog please contact me by filling out the contact form on the right.

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