Filled With Kindness And Goodness

FILLED WITH KINDNESS AND GOODNESS

a prayer to open

Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

May your Kingdom come, may your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Then Elimelech died, and Naomi was left with her two sons. The two sons married Moabite women. One married a woman named Orpah, and the other a woman named Ruth. But about ten years later, both Mahlon and Kilion died. This left Naomi alone, without her two sons or her husband.

Then Naomi heard in Moab that the LORD had blessed his people in Judah by giving them good crops again. So Naomi and her daughters-in-law got ready to leave Moab to return to her homeland. With her two daughters-in-law she set out from the place where she had been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah.

But on the way, Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back to your mothers’ homes. And may the LORD reward you for your kindness to your husbands and to me. May the LORD bless you with the security of another marriage.” Then she kissed them good-bye, and they all broke down and wept.

“No,” they said. “We want to go with you to your people.”

But Naomi replied, “Why should you go on with me? Can I still give birth to other sons who could grow up to be your husbands? No, my daughters, return to your parents’ homes, for I am too old to marry again. And even if it were possible, and I were to get married tonight and bear sons, then what? Would you wait for them to grow up and refuse to marry someone else? No, of course not, my daughters! Things are far more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD himself has raised his fist against me.”

And again they wept together, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye. But Ruth clung tightly to Naomi. “Look,” Naomi said to her, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. You should do the same.”

But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more.

We know kindness and goodness when we see them—or it might be more accurate to say that we sense these qualities in people. Think of people you know who are kind. There’s more to it than just acts of kindness: It’s something in their eyes, in their body language, in their spirit. And when these kind people act, we experience them more fully somehow. Jerry Bridges, author of The Fruitful Life, said it this way:

Kindness is the inner disposition, created by the Holy Spirit, that causes us to be sensitive to the needs of others, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. Goodness is kindness in action—words and deeds.^a

• Where in your life do you see the type of kindness and goodness Ruth displayed? In what areas are you struggling to live with this sense of kindness and goodness?
• What is your life saying about your kindness and goodness, whether to those who know you or to those who simply observe you?
• Take a few minutes in prayer, asking God to show you where you need to grow when it comes to kindness and goodness. What did he illuminate for you?

Father, I long to demonstrate kindness to those I know and strangers alike. Build kindness in me, and allow it to come out in action as goodness toward others. Help me do what is good, what serves others, even when it costs me, and let it flow not from a desire to look good but from a desire to love like you. Amen.