Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.
Ephesians 4:31 (NIV)
Where the Kindness Comes From
The bell over the door quit working in December, so there’s a hand bell on the counter now and a card telling you to use it. Overhead the shirts go around the rail in their plastic, hundreds of them, turning the corner and coming back. The woman working the back has the radio off. She goes through every pocket, and she writes on the tag what she found and where: pen, left breast. Grease, right cuff. She names it before she treats it.
Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Paul wrote that to believers in Ephesus.
Six things, and each one is its own animal. Bitterness keeps well and needs no maintenance, while rage arrives and burns off by supper. Slander gets done in a pleasant voice, usually to the one listener who already agrees with you.
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. God forgave in Christ. Paul sets that down as the reason and the supply for everything he’s asking, so the kindness he wants comes up out of what was done to them.
Bitterness comes out of storage at the same temperature it went in, and it comes out with the address still on it. Ask yourself what yours is about and you’ll have a name, a room, and the sentence itself, filed where you can put your hand on it. Paul answers that with a fact about God’s treatment of you at a moment when you had nothing to stand on.
He asks kindness of people who have had kindness done to them, and he tells them who did it: in Christ, God forgave you.
A Prayer to Remember
Thank you for forgiving me in Christ, God. None of it was earned. I’ve kept a grudge warm since last summer and I could recite the whole thing from memory. Put some of that in me toward her by Friday. I’d settle today for honestly wanting to.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
