6. Let’s extend kindness.
Ephesians 4:32 when Jesus says, “My yoke is easy.” So kindness asks, “How can I make this situation as easy for the other person as possible? How can I make a positive response as easy as it can be?”
7. When we wrong another, let’s admit it: “What I did to you was wrong. I am sorry. By God’s grace, I won’t do that again. Is there anything I can do now, to make up for it?”
Where a wrong has been done, as the Bible defines wrong, an apology will help. Reparations are also biblical and may be necessary in the case of a significant injury. But evading the wrongs of our past only builds hypocrisy into our future. And God cannot bless that. But God will surely bless serious repentance. When Zacchaeus vowed to repay the people he had defrauded, the Lord didn’t reply, “You don’t have to. That’s water under the bridge!” No, the Lord said, “Today salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:8-9).
One of the most beautiful scenes in the Bible is between brothers who had been long alienated: “Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept” (Genesis 33:4). God wants that beauty to reappear in every generation, as needed.
