Day 16 | Kindness and Compassion

Reflection

You’re probably familiar with Psalm 23 – it starts ‘The Lord is my shepherd…’. So you’ll know it mentions tough situations: ‘Even though I walk through the darkest valley’. But it also settles with quiet confidence.

Here, in the last verse, confidence is expressed as its author David reflects deeply on God in all his circumstances. He describes God as our Shepherd, as the One who is with us always, and the One whose goodness and love follow us to the very end.

We are truly blessed by these characteristics of God, but we are also blessed to be a blessing. God’s presence should rub off on us, shouldn’t it? The psalm says there is assurance that God’s goodness and love will follow me – will follow you – every day. Surely, part of the divine plan here is not just that we receive goodness and love, but that we pass it on, in the places we find ourselves daily, too.

The Old Testament word used for love in verse 6, hesed, is rich in meaning. It’s helpful for us to remember where this hesed originates. The main use of the word is as a description of God’s feelings toward His people. This characteristic is at the heart of our God, sometimes translated as mercy, sometimes love, and at other times loving-kindness.

We’ve used the word compassion as a driving force for confidence, but loving-kindness is surely a good description of what we’re getting at. Today, we take strength from knowing that we, first, receive this compassion. It comes to us freely each day.

As we go out into the world, whenever we display compassion or loving-kindness, we are passing on what we have received. We are copying a characteristic of our God.

Responding in prayer

Lord thank you for Your hesed.

Help me to show loving-kindness to others I meet today.

Let loving-kindness give me the confidence I need to represent You well.