Super Bowl

“…whoever is kind to the needy honors God” (Proverbs 14:31b, NIV 1984). 

One of my friends recruited me to a Super Bowl party last week, but I did not get to watch the game. The game was in the other room as we served 250 homeless men a dinner of barbecued chicken, beans, sandwiches cookies and cake. We threw in a scoop of salsa to add some vitamins. That was my part. When we had finished, I asked my friend how she had decided to set up this service and she told me, “I turn 60 this year and my plan is to do 60 acts of kindness over the year. This is one of them.”

Wow. 

What difference would we make in our little corners of the world if each of us committed to performing the same number of deliberate acts of kindness as the years that God has given us?

What if each of us kept a list of deliberate acts of kindness on the note section of our phones or in a little black book as we checked off those numbers?

This would be less than one a week for most of us. More for some, but not much.

It would not be legalism if we didn’t ask God for credit.

It would not be pride if we kept the list to ourselves.

What it would be is habit making and character building. 

“We have to work out what God works in, and the way we work it out is by the mechanical process of habit.”                      Oswald Chambers 

62 deliberate acts of kindness and then a life-long of habitual kindness. Not a bad deal. 61 to go. 

Dear Lord,

Thank you for the opportunity to demonstrate your love through my actions. Make it deliberate as long as I need to be changed and then make it my character.

Amen