“If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat,
and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,
for you will heap burning coals on his head
and the LORD will reward you.”
Proverbs 25:21, 22
I have not seen the play Les Misérables, but Dave and I watched the movie a few weeks ago. The main character Jean Valjean is an ex-convict. As he is trying to figure out what he is going to do with his life now that he has been released from prison, he stumbles onto a nice couple that take him in for the night. The man is a priest. During the night, Jean Valjean decides to steal the silver candlesticks and leave before he is found out. However, he is caught and the police bring him back to the priest. The priest when asked if the candlesticks were his tells the police that he gave Jean Valjean the candlesticks and asks his wife to also give him the silverware as he had meant to give him the silverware as well.
The priest was practically putting this verse into practice. He knew that Jean Valjean had stolen the silver candlesticks, but instead of berating him and putting him into jail he said to him, “Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.”
The priest had the end in mind. He knew that the best chance that Jean Valjean had for changing his life was to show him what kindness, goodness, and selflessness looked like. Too often when we are so self-involved we have no idea what true selflessness looks like. All a selfish person knows is how to look out for is themselves. They look at what their needs and wants are and do everything they can to satisfy those.
This verse tells us to demonstrate what kindness, goodness, and selflessness look like. The “enemy” will not have any idea how to change his ways if he is not shown what selflessness looks like. There is no better way to demonstrate kindness than to look at what the needs of the “enemy” is and seek to meet those needs.
So many times in relationships where we are being taken advantage of by another person or being mistreated by another person, we think that we need to flee or that we need to fight back. When we look at Jesus and how He lived His life we see that so many times what He did was demonstrate love. He chose to teach truth and demonstrate love. When our kindness is given to others, it is a stark contrast to the evil that the other person is demonstrating.
I am thankful that our society has become more aware of abuse and impact that it has on the abused. Dealing with abuse is not my intention in this short blog.
What I want us to consider is how we treat those around us. Do we think of their needs or do we think of our own? Do we seek to share the love of Christ by showering someone with kindness or trying to get our own way? The best way to show our “enemies” kindness, goodness, and selflessness is to return their evil deeds just like the priest did in Les Misérables to Jean Valjean. Jean would not have known what these traits looked like if he had not seen them demonstrated. Sometimes, it takes repeated efforts of kindness before our “enemy” changes his ways.
After all that Jesus did for me and what I do deserve, the least I can do is shower another person with kindness, goodness, and selflessness.
