I was ‘scrolling’ the other day through Instagram and came upon this reel that stopped me in my tracks. It’s shared from a secular point of view, but please...take your time with this and read through the transcript I've posted here:  (caution- 'steel-toed slippers' advised)

--

We love to believe we are ‘good people’ because we’re kind to strangers.

You can be kind to animals and kind to the delivery person who drops packages off at your house. You can be kind to every stranger who crosses your path.

But the real test of character isn’t how you treat the barista or the cashier at the store. It’s how you speak to the people who live with the real you.

Kindness to strangers is not the measure of our character.

Kindness at home is the real test. Strangers don’t carry your history.

Strangers don’t activate your wounds.

Strangers don’t mirror the parts of you that you still haven’t dealt with or maybe have avoided for years.

Your spouse does.

Your kids do.

Your home does.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth that most people dodge:... If all of your graciousness is saved for strangers, that is not kindness. If you can only be gentle when it cost you nothing, that’s not kindness... That’s ‘image management’.

The real measure of who we are isn’t the polite smile we give to the grocery clerk. It’s the tone we use with the partner who loves us.

It’s the patience we offer when our children are overwhelmed. It’s the softness we use on the days our egos want to snap.

Kindness in public builds persona.

Kindness at home builds a marriage.

Marriages don’t fall apart from one big explosion.

They erode from the daily absence of basic decency and respect. From the slow leak of everyday unkindness and indifference.

Kindness to strangers might make people like you. Kindness to your spouse makes you trustworthy.

Kindness to strangers creates an image. Kindness at home creates a person of character.

Tone. Patience. Tenderness. Respect.

Being kind everywhere except home isn’t kindness. It’s performance. This is image management dressed up as virtue.

And the people closest to you feel the difference.

(P. T. Mistlberger)

---

Now this is what I would call a 'Mic Drop'!, and here's why...

I’ve shared the passage before from 2 Cor. 13:5 where we are admonished to ‘examine ourselves’ to see whether or not we are ‘in the faith...and if Jesus Christ is in us’. Care to know how one might do that? You might want to read this post from the start one more time, nice...and slow...and aloud.

For all the church doctrines and experiences we might have on our spiritual resumés, along with all the ‘good works’ we might do ‘in the name of the Lord’ (Matt. 7:22; 1 Cor. 13:1-3), Jesus said the true test of who His followers were would be by the ‘love’ they show and demonstrate towards one another. “By this...would all men know...” (John 13:34-35). That’s it; bottom line. “If we have not this kind of love...everything else ‘profits us nothing’.

And here’s the real ‘mic drop’ for us all: If we can’t ‘get it right in our own homes with those closest to us, then attempting to do get it right anywhere else...is just ‘performance’... or ‘image management’. Or as Paul explained...a ‘form of outward godliness while denying the power’ (2 Tim. 3:5).

Maybe that’s why one of the last things Jesus passed on to His beloved followers was this: “Wait here until you are endued with power from on high...after the Holy Spirit has come upon you...and then...you will be witnesses for me...first...in Jerusalem (your home)...then Judea and Samaria, and eventually the furthest points of the earth. (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8)

Do you realize what Jesus was trying to convey here? We can’t successfully do this unless we are filled with His power, His love, and His nature, because ‘apart from Him, we can do nothing’ (John 15:1-8).