Being Right and Being Kind
Proverbs 21:21 Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life and honour. (NRSV)
I’m sure you know how frustrating it can be when you know that you know that you’re right, and yet you have some idiot (sorry, but that’s how it feels, right?!) arguing against you until they’re red in the face.
And yep, everything inside wants to rip their head off, amen?! It is so incredibly frustrating. Or even … let’s dial it down a notch… you’re at work and one of your peers or a subordinate is in the process of making a mistake. So you just roll over the top of them to achieve your (obviously!) right outcome. Who cares about how it makes them feel?
My point is that all too often, given the choice between being right and being kind, we’ll go with being right. Kindness? What does it matter?
Proverbs 21:21 Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life and honour. (NRSV)
Now, granted … it says “righteousness” , not “being right”, but in this case it means basically the same thing … or does it? Well, that depends. If you think of “being right” as doing the right thing, then yes, the two mean the same.
But if you think that “being right” means getting your own way, achieving the outcome that you can see is obviously the right one, at the expense of treating the other person with dignity, respect and kindness then they’re definitely not the same.
When you’re in one of those difficult positions where it feels as though righteousness and kindness are mutually exclusive – that you can have one or the other, but not both – then you can be certain that you’ve adopted the wrong definition of “being right”.
Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life and honour.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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