Kindness that leads to repentance, Part 2

There is a phrase in Romans 2,  that Paul presents as a question. This phrase has been worn out over the centuries. Preachers preach on it all the time, there are several songs about it, and we have all together used it as a Christian cliché.

The question phase is:  “... God‘s kindness is meant to lead us to repentance“. 

What an accurate, precious, but altogether deep truth. God‘s kindness, which is manifested in the many creative ways that He does it, ultimately leads to repentance. Kindness is the intent, but the outworking, in its specifics, may not always be palatable on the surface.

There is an outworking of kindness that is gentle, and there is an outworking of kindness that feels harsh. Ultimately the intent is the same, but the way God displays it will vary depending on his purpose.

There is kindness shown through searing hot coals. This is much like tough love. Is there such thing? Can love be tough? Can kindness be rough? Absolutely! As someone once said, “God wounds like a surgeon“. This is when God, I’m his sovereignty exactness, like a expert doctor, surgically cut things out for the purpose of healing and well-being. The surgery is not painless. In fact,  there may be, like in physical surgeries, some trauma even after the procedure is done. But ultimately the intent is to save the life and to make the patient healthy again. God does this as He lovingly, but painfully, slices out pieces of unnecessary flesh from our lives. He is precise like a well trained surgeon, but sometimes he doesn’t use any anesthesia to dull the pain. Often there is lesson in the pain. Often there is beauty in the ashes. Is this kindness? Absolutely! The opposite is quite unkind. If a doctor knew something needed to be removed, but he wanted to spare the patient the temporary pain and discomfort, he might be called unkind. Similarly, God would be absolutely unkind, if not altogether sinister, if he would not remove the things that need to be removed for the sake of our temporary comfort.

 Of course there’s another kindness, that on the surface and beneath the surface is quite purely GRACE. There are times when God will give something, or show something, that we clearly know we don’t deserve. And this grace upon grace would break our hearts like nothing else. It’s an interesting tactic. It’s one that God uses often, but sometimes we don’t notice it. He has already done it first and foremost through the death of Jesus for our salvation. That event is a constant reminder of his kindness outside of our ability to achieve goodness. But more specifically, and more simply, He sometimes meet us in the middle of our rebellion and sin, with a rose or with a gift. And because He has made us, he knows that our defenses will come crashing down through a display of kindness. Like a dragon that has in penetrable skin, but with the secret soft scale that is vulnerable, God knows the right spot to touch us - and it is often a display of kindness that will rattle us to the core, cause our knees to buckle, we would come to Him broken and repentant.

There are many specific ways that God displays His kindness-both in the harsh and in the gentle. In the end, it is kindness nonetheless. It is His intent, his hidden purpose, that drives His kindness-whether harsh or gentle or gracious or painful. And this ultimately is intended for us to repent, and once again come near to him. 

But as amazing as that is, there’s something even more marvelous than this! The more gigantic reality is twofold: (1) God is so gracious and patient with us that he would even extend kindness to us repeatedly in order to get us to repent. He doesn’t owe us that. Neither do we deserve it.  (2) He initiates our return to Him. This is fascinating! He doesn’t simply wait for us to come to Him, and then meet us with us embrace. In His unfathomable love and kindness, he actually initiates our return by first displaying kindness to us. 

All this should cause our trembling, as we find ourselves in the presence of an overwhelmingly gracious God, who is undeniably, inexplicably, and aboundingly kind.