Righteous and Kind
The Lord is righteous in all his works and kind in all his deeds. Psalm 145:17
I have a battery-powered fan blowing on me as I sit in a low wooden chair, quite literally in the middle of Africa. Sometimes, even though I’ve been here for nearly 6 weeks now, I have to pinch myself. Sometimes, it’s very easy to remember!
There’s definitely an air of excitement about it. Every single day brings a different experience, a new challenge, an exciting event. But every day also brings the reality that I have to wash my hair with a cup and bucket; flushing the toilet - praise the Lord I have one - means filling a bucket with water and swishing it into the toilet; and a few hours of electricity means paying $2.00 a liter (roughly $8 a gallon) to run the generator and a rush to get everything plugged in to charge while it’s on!
As I was preparing for this new phase of life, I struggled with anxieties that I had never experienced before. I am not by nature a fearful or anxious person. But as I, a Christian lady in her mid-forties, prepared for this, the fears and anxieties began to well up within me. In a very low moment, a friend sent me a passage from Psalm 145. As I read the passage and let the words of verse 17 seep into my soul, two overwhelming thoughts began to take shape.
First, I began to ponder the odd juxtaposition of these two words—righteous (just, in the French Bible) and kind (merciful, in French). I could ponder this union of words for a long time.
Righteous and kind. Just and merciful. Righteous, yet kind. Just, yet merciful.
Righteousness, as defined by the online Oxford dictionary, is the quality of being morally right or justifiable. I hear that word, and honestly, I think austere: a quiet court room with a severe judge ready to give a guilty verdict.
Kind is defined as having or showing a friendly, generous, and considerate nature. I absolutely love the word kind. There’s a gentleness about the word: it gives me that warm, fuzzy, happy, kind feeling. Totally opposite of that austere court room!
As a result, these two words created dissonance in my mind. How can a judge waiting to give me a guilty verdict be kind? How can justice coexist with kindness? I wrestled over these two words. But, as I lay there meditating on a modified version of the verse (I’m a horrible memorizer, so I often shorten verses), the words became clear to me.
God is righteous and kind in all his ways.
God is righteous and kind in all his ways.
God is righteous and kind in all his ways.
God is righteous and kind in all his ways.
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God can only be kind to the extent that He is just. If He is not just, He is not kind. His justice flows from His kindness just as His kindness flows from His justice. Only God is capable of creating this melody with absolutely no dissonance. In fact, it makes a beautiful and glorious harmony. And as I meditated on the words, the beauty of these two words began to have its effect on my mind and my heart.
The anxieties of wondering how in the world I would even get to Africa in a COVID-19 world, and if I did, how in the world I would survive being in the heart of Africa with no one of like culture within a 4-hour drive, began to lift. Justice and kindness. These words took deep root in my heart, and I began to see the beauty of these two seemingly discordant words. Nothing that God sends my way is outside of His righteousness or His kindness. Because of that truth, I can live and move in full and complete confidence that He knows the beginning from the end. He will give grace to endure what He deems righteous and kind.
Secondly, I was reminded once again how dependent I am on the Word of God. I don’t really need friends or a good support system or someone to vent to if I truly believe that God and His Word are sufficient. As I conversed with myself that night, I realized that if I believe the words that I had just written, then I had to act upon them. But I would only find God truly just and kind in life’s difficult circumstances as I drew closer to Him. The ability to truly rest and depend on Him would only come as I gazed on Him and pursued Him. And the only way for me to diligently pursue Him comes through the reading of his Word.
Yesterday I read Psalm 85, and another set of words jumped out at me. Verse 10 says, “Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” Much could be said of the first part of the verse, but I want to focus on the second couplet.
Here again we have righteousness coupled with an apparently discordant word: peace. But this time it didn’t take me long to hear the music. My heart immediately began to rejoice as I contemplated this symphonic trio: righteousness and kindness and peace.
As I begin this journey of mothering 28 kids, specifically 14 in my personal household, it seems that injustice, meanness, and chaos often reign. But, as I recharge in the Word each day, I am reminded that there will be no peace and no kindness without righteousness. And without feeding on the Word each day, we will not truly be able to hear the beautiful choral arrangement of these ideas.
As we read the Word, may God give us grace to grasp his righteousness and kindness and to embrace His peace in every aspect of life.
The Lord is righteous in all his works and kind in all his deeds. Righteousness and peace kiss each other. Psalms 145:17; 85:10b
