God's Kindness by Denise Loock

God’s kindness is questioned by believers and non-believers alike. My guest, Denise Loock shows how God’s definition of kindness differs from ours. Perhaps it will give new perspective to something you’re facing right now.

2MefromHim Devotional

Or do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? Romans 2:4

I’ve been grappling with God’s kindness lately. Not the “let me massage your feet” variety—dinner with friends, an encouraging email, an answered prayer—the blessings that I immediately recognize and embrace. No. I’ve been wrestling with the “looks like I’ll have to amputate” kindness. The kind that pierces my spirit—a friend’s betrayal, the loss of a job, a doctor’s brain-numbing diagnosis—a wound that disables me and sends me scurrying for shelter.

God’s definition of kindness is so different than mine that I often don’t recognize it. In my dictionary, kindness generates smiles, laughter, and relaxation. Kindness prompts me to say, “Wow! I’m so glad to be God’s child. He’s so good to me.”

But God’s kindness is much more complex than that. His kindness is always focused on eternity—preparing me for heaven, purifying me so I’ll look just like Jesus when I walk through heaven’s gates. That’s the reason God’s kindness looks like cruelty sometimes.

Think of a surgeon’s relationship to a patient. If the patient’s foot is so infected that it cannot be healed, the surgeon’s brand of kindness requires amputation—pain, loss, excruciating therapy, and a new normal.

That’s what God’s kindness mandates for us sometimes—amputating infectious passions, habits, and philosophies that threaten our spiritual well-being. Allowing God to cut out my prideful actions, my judgmental attitudes, and my self-centered habits is essential. But it may also be extremely painful.

Paul told the Romans that despising God’s kindness was indicative of a hardened, rebellious heart. To despise something is to scorn it, to trample it underfoot, to consider it worthless. How do I respond when God says to me, “Looks like we’ll have to amputate”? Do I trust Him, confident that He’s doing what’s best for me? Or do I scorn His diagnosis and refuse to let Him operate?

One of the clearest indications that my relationship with God is healthy is my response to His kindness. Both varieties. Foot massages and amputations. What does God’s kindness look like in your life today? How are you responding to it?

*NOTE: The word translated “kindness” in the NIV is translated differently in other versions: “mercy” (KJV); “steadfast love” (ESV, RSV); “lovingkindness” (NASB). In Hebrew the word is checed.

About the author:

Denise Kelso Loock is a former English teacher, Bible teacher, speaker, writer, and editor. Her work has appeared in a variety of well-known devotional publications. She is the founder and writer at http://digdeeperdevotions.com/.

A collection of Denise’s devotions, Open Your Hymnal: Devotions That Harmonize Scripture With Song, was released by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas in 2010. To read more about the book or to order it, click here. A second volume of hymn devotions, Open Your Hymnal Again, was released June 2012. To read more about it, click here: Open Your Hymnal Again.

Denise taught a weekly women’s Bible study at the Montgomery Evangelical Free Church in Belle Mead, NJ, for 15 years. Over the last 5 years, she developed and taught her own Bible study curriculum: The Life of Joseph, The Life of Moses, and The Life of Joshua, and the books of 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. Denise is currently teaching a Bible Study on Ruth at Long’s Chapel, in Waynesville, NC.

She lives in Western North Carolina with her husband and their cat, Ginger. They have two grown children.

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