Kindness

I have visited my grandmother’s house almost every Christmas of my life. On many of those Christmas trips, I’ve attempted to read one of the old books adorning G-mama’s shelves. More often than not, I have failed at this attempt. I’m a terrible reader with my eyes. So this past Christmas, I didn’t even bother to look at the bookshelves. In addition to my family who permanently live in town, my niece and nephews and families were in town, so I focused on them instead of literary scholarship…until the last night we were there.

For some reason, as I walked to my room that night, a tiny little book caught my attention. I imagine that the book had been sitting there for most of my life, yet for some reason it jumped out to me that night. So I pulled it off the shelf and went to the world’s most comfortable bed, fully expecting to be asleep a few pages into the text. Instead, I found myself closing the book’s back cover well over an hour later, having just read a tiny little book that spoke to me so powerfully that I wiped away tears more than once and packed the book in my book bag so that I could read it again. And probably again. And again.

“The Greatest Thing In the World” is a meditation on 1 Corinthians 13 that Henry Drummond wrote in 1874. Henry Drummond, born in Scotland in 1851, was an ordained minister and theologian best remembered as a gifted evangelist who assisted Dwight L. Moody during his revival campaigns. He was also a lecturer in natural science and wrote several books. Before that night at G-mama’s, I have no memory of ever hearing Henry Drummond’s name or of being introduced to “The Greatest Thing In The World.” I’m not sure why this is so, and I’m not sure why more people in my circles haven’t read and/or discussed this book/meditation/address. Maybe I wasn’t ready to hear Henry’s thoughts. Or maybe we haven’t needed to be reminded of his words so desperately until now.

Since stealing Drummond’s tiny little book from its place on a bookshelf in Jacksonville, Florida, I have been keeping it on my nightstand, reading its pages slowly each night, and letting its words, thoughts, and images seep into my being. I could probably spend weeks hashing out my thoughts on love, as influenced by Drummond’s ideas, but for now I simply want to share the passage that I read last night. Written so long ago, Drummond’s words and semantics are sometimes difficult to decipher, so I’m going to paraphrase a bit to make the thoughts more readable. I hope these words present as much relevant challenge to you as they do me. If not, come back to them. You never know when the word of God, active and alive, will speak to your soul. As I learned this Christmas break, it’s oftentimes when you least expect it.

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Kindness. Love active. Have you ever noticed how much of Christ’s life was spent in doing kind things—in merely doing kind things? Run over it with that in view, and you will find that He spent a great proportion of His time simple in making people happy, in doing good turns to people.

There is only one thing greater than happiness in the world, and that is holiness; and holiness is not in our keeping. But what God has put in our power is the happiness of those about us, and that is largely to be secured by our being kind to them.

“The greatest thing,” says someone, “a man can do for [God] is to be kind to some of [God’s] other children.” I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we are? How much the world needs it! How easily it is done. How instantaneously it acts. How infallibly it is remembered. How superabundantly it pays itself back—for there is no debtor in the world so honorable, so superbly honorable, as Love. “Love never fails.” Love is success, Love is happiness, Love is life. Love, I say with Browning, “is energy of Life.”

For life, with all it yields of joy or woe
And hope and fear,
Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love,--
How might love be, hath been indeed, and is.

Where Love is, God is. Those that dwells in love dwell in God. God is love. Therefore, love! Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom, perhaps, we do least of all.

There is a difference between trying to please and giving pleasure. Give pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure. For that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly loving spirit.

“I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

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Loving God who is Love. Help us to love through kindness today, tomorrow, and in all the days to come. Amen. And amen.