God’s Go-Gear

I was meandering through a sports store this week during a rare outing to the mall. I’m not an athlete by any stretch of the imagination, but I love to look like one. My daily twenty-five minutes on the treadmill (I know, I know, I’m such an overachiever!) is a great excuse for a Nike wardrobe infusion. I was perusing the sale rack in hopes of finding my next favorite outfit when I noticed a sign just one rack over that read, “Go-gear! Active-wear for today’s busy life.”

That gear is made for me, I thought as I abandoned my sale rack hunt and began paging through the cute little sport skirts with matching sweat-proof sports bras.  I’ve got a busy life and plenty of active kids to keep me running. Hmm.. sweat proof. I do break a sweat now and then at high noon when I’m playing whiffle ball in the yard with Joshua…

 Unfortunately, the cost of  being sweat proofed caused this rather frugle mama to perspire right there in the temperature-controlled store. The cute little active wear for today’s busy life left me actively calculating the ridiculous cost of my fashion desires. The price tag divided by the cash in my wallet equaled my quiet return to the sale rack where I decided that sweaty sports bras weren’t so bad after all!

While I may fail to sport the look of a “fashionably busy life,” the Apostle Paul suggests another set of go -gear that is worth my careful consideration. Woven with the sturdy threads of “tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience,” this active wear sports the beauty of the Holy Spirit combined with the practicality of a servant-hearted Savior. Like the rack of clothing I admired in the sports store, this gear, too, comes at a cost. It is not a price tag that will drain my wallet, but one that may demand my time and energy. Simply put, kindness is God’s “active wear.”

In her mom-friendly book “Naked Fruit,” former MOPS president Elisa Morgan writes:

“To be kind means to be ‘useful.’” Kindness is meeting needs. First, kindness is an action. Kindness notices that an elderly neighbor hasn’t been out and about for a few days, so it knocks on her door and checks on her health. Kindness adopts an AIDS orphan in Africa and faithfully sends a support check each month. Kindness rinses out a husband’s dishes and picks up his socks just because he’s running late and such gestures would help out. Kindness contains pure, clean action- the kind that usually costs us something in terms of time and energy.

Second, kindness is an action coupled with compassion. Kindness cares, and because it cares, it acts. Kindness gets involved. Kindness notices the child who day after snowy day shows up to school without a warm coat and it purchases a winter cloak in secret. Kindness recognizes the teenager who sits alone on her porch every evening and so it invites her over for a cold glass of lemonade and a warm conversation. Kindness spots the weary mother of preschoolers and offers to baby sit so she can take a nap…Kindness cares, and because it cares, it acts (92).”

God will never force His fashion on us; but He invites us to step into the closet of His heart and slip on Heaven’s go-gear. If we do, we can model timeless beauty to a world dying for a glimpse of kindness.