Love is Kind

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Well friends, we're being blessed by Brian Helsby in the studio this week as he's sharing real-life stories from the ministry he's done over the years, and stories from his book, God's Love Stories. Thank you very much, Brian.

The book talks about 1 Corinthians 13 and what love is—how love is patient and it’s kind. And I want to talk a bit about kindness. I want to talk about the people who have shown kindness to me.

Mentors and Role Models

In those early years of my life, my parents weren’t Christians or practicing Christians, and mentors and father figures came into my life and filled that vacuum, filled that gap in my life. I think of Sunday school teachers who took us climbing Table Mountain, spending a weekend up on Table Mountain, or cave crawling.  And it wasn’t just Sunday school teachers, but Christian teachers in high school who showed that same kind of love and spent weekends with us on the mountain doing things.

I think of my sports coaches. I had the same team of sports coaches for four years, under 14 to under 16. We never lost a soccer game during that time! And they taught me a lot more about life than just soccer.

I’m grateful for the Friday night youth group leaders who invested in my life. I’m grateful for that father-figure Youth for Christ club leader who got alongside me and said, "Brian, I want to be your mentor. I want to mentor you. I want to teach you how to lead”. He spent time with me, and he prayed his whole life for me until the day he died. Every day, he prayed for me.

And to have those kinds of people in my life who mentored me, who cared for me, who loved me, who just never gave up on me when I failed—they were accountability partners, people I could go to, and they would ask hard questions. And I was committed to giving honest answers, even when I had failed and let God down. They never let me down. They never turned their backs on me. They kept going with me. They kept supporting, they kept loving, they kept helping me move to the next level.

The Importance of Kindness and Mentorship

And so I’m grateful. My last mentor in my life passed away a year ago, and so for my whole life, I’ve had these people, and I’m deeply grateful for all that they taught me. Many of our young people today are needing the kind of mentors that I had, the kind of father figures. Over 60% of our young people grow up without a biological father in the home, and we need father figures, mother figures to move into homes. We need people to adopt families, to be there, to play with the kids, to mentor, support, and love.

Love is kind, and God is kind. And God just keeps on loving, but He loves through people. Maybe this week, He can love through you.