Dear sisters,
I just read an article on the sinking of the titanic. The author was saying how the 1997 movie did not accurately describe those final moments when the boats were being filled will terrified people. The movie led us to believe that brash rich men pushed their way past women and children to get a place inside the lifeboat, but in real life that did not happen. Even one of the richest men in the world at that time, John Astor, gave up a spot for his wife and unborn child. History records that no rich man survived that doomed vessel. Instead, the men chose to die out of a supernatural kindness and sense of self-sacrifice that I bet they didn’t even know they possessed. These men showed kindness to those they loved and for the good of those they didn’t know.
We are not born with a desire to be kind. This side of the fall all mankind strive for their own greatness, worth, and name. When Adam decided not to be kind and protect Eve from eating the fruit, it changed the world for all time. No longer do we seek others more than ourselves. No longer do we love our neighbor more than ourselves. No longer do we choose kindness over getting what we want. Wars have and are being fought to win ultimate ruling power. People are being murdered because they look scary or are walking in the wrong neighborhood. People are condemned before they are even asked their side of the story. A political pundit cares more about an issue than of the people affected by this issue. Hate is the game of today. Hate is what motivates the masses, not kindness.
Although we shake our heads and pontificate on how we’ve gotten where we are, let’s be honest, the hatred that led to murder began with Adam and Eve’s first two children. It has not gotten better, it only spiraled from there. God warned His people that when they forget who He was, they would become miserable, be conquered, or even die. All but one family were drowned by a flood. An entire generation died before the Israelites could enter the promised land. Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Rome were all used as tools to show Israel their sin of forgetting their first love. The prophets warned them to repent and they even killed the prophets. Finally, the God who had always been there, was silent. Silent for 400 years. Generations heard nothing from the God who made them. Their sorrow was great. What was God doing? Why were they not hearing from the One who chose them? Had their sin finally separated them for good?
Then, in the still of the night a baby was born to a virgin. A new star shown in the sky. Shepherds were blinded by the shine of a choir of angles singing of this baby’s birth! In the depth of their gross sin, a Savior had been born. Was this Savior deserved? Was this Savior earned by how they lived their lives? No. This Savior was given out of the kindness of a God who loves the unlovable. He loves the broken, orphaned, and outcast. Yet he chooses to provide a way for these unruly, hate filled people to be forgiven. And it started in a little town called Bethlehem.
Sweet sister, this Christmas, celebrate the kindness of God that provided a way for you to be restored back to the fellowship Adam and Eve had with God before that fateful choice.
“For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” Titus 3:3-5.