“When a tree get’s struck by lightning it never goes back to normal,” Clifton said. “It creates a new normal.” – Hannah Brencher

Kindness, if it were lightning, would be the heat lightning that flashes only across the sky for a brief moment, owning no loud claps of thunder, and often shining for no one to see or appreciate or comment on. Kindness is the lightning that flashes a tree in a thick forest, leaving that one miniscule tree changed forever, but compared to the mass of wild trees around it, has changed nothing really at all.

It is easy to be unkind; unkindness gets a lot more airtime.

People are far more likely to talk about the mean things or the daring things or the aching things, than they are to talk about how kind you were today. And really, it’s a lot easier to lose yourself in your own head than it is to think about how every person you meet is a human being, and therefore you are morally obligated to treat them with kindness. It’s a heck of a lot easier to make assumptions about people standing in the parking lot or in a specific town or state or race than it is to strive to always be kind. But as I’ve said before: we are made of the best of the world, with the breath of God and love and we were made to do hard things. We were created by the same God to live this life together with purpose and strength and genuine goodness. Yet we get so caught up in prejudice and fear and social agendas, we forget that we’re all doing this together. Every day of this year you are living alongside every other breathing human being, if you’re looking for something to have in common in order to justify being kind to a complete stranger, there it is: you are breathing the same air. This life is taking you both on a massively exciting and terrifying roller coaster ride, and there you two are standing side by side in the grocery store.

It’s worth it to be kind to that stranger because their life has been just as hard as yours has, but more than that even: it’s worth it to be kind to that stranger because they are undeserving of your anger or hatred or assumptions. They have done nothing to you except exist in the same space as yourself, and their hair color or the things in their cart or the size of their pants or what they said to their friends is not yours to own. What is yours to own is your response, this person is who they are for a reason, just as you are, and you have to respect that despite your own personal beliefs. I don’t care if they’re pro-life or pro-choice, and it is not your job to make them think your way. It isn’t. Jesus didn’t say love the neighbor that thinks like you or dresses like you, and he didn’t say to change the way your neighbor thinks in order to make it easier for you to love them. He said love your neighbor as yourself. In the act of loving yourself you take on every single one of your personal grief’s and beliefs and mistakes and joys, in the act of loving yourself you set aside what other people believe and accept their beliefs as your truth. I dare you to love your neighbor like that. I dare you to love them in a way that sets aside their flaws in the way you brush away all of the things you excuse about yourself.

You exist for people, for others. For Jesus has sent you out into this world not for yourself, not for your personal agenda or for your growing bank account. You exist in this life because there is a purpose for you written in the stars and someone up there thought you could benefit their cause down here. We are called to live like Jesus. Jesus didn’t come down to earth and scream at the Pharisees every time they believed something different than what He did, and news flash: He’s part God. He believes and knows all of the right things. He was able to have civil discussion and act kindly towards people us humans wanted to stone or cast out or leave stranded blind on the side of the road, and he knows all of the things we don’t about their sin. In order to pursue Jesus, in order to delve into the richness of His love for us, we have to hand that kind of love back out. We have to toss aside the stones, toss aside the ignorance and annoyance and disgust, and take up the kindness that we have long since forgotten.

The good Samaritan did not help the traveler only after he’d changed his beliefs or apologized: he saw someone in need and swallowed his prejudices in order to show kindness to a total stranger who would never be able to repay him for saving his life. It’s a split second decision, whether or not to be kind, but the decision may impact another one of God’s children. It is not just a stranger that approaches you on the street asking you for money, it is someone’s brother or mother or friend. It is not just a vagabond, it is not just a migrant, people are not just people: they have stories, similarities to you, beliefs that they’re willing to die for just as you do. Just as you do.

Everyone you meet is worthy of respect. Every single person you make eye contact with or who bags your groceries or who accidentally bumps you in a crowded place has something to teach you. They know something that you do not. Digest that thought for a second. The person you overlook or snap at behind the cash register has a wealth of knowledge that could change you forever. The server that you tip poorly because they preformed in a way you didn’t like, might be studying to be the next doctor or lawyer or something, anything: they are striving to be something worth being and your lack of kindness to them affects their attempt at that goal. You do not know what runs through the minds of those people or what hides behind their eyes: and it ought to be a lot easier to be kind to them than most of us make it seem.