“If your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For your kind treatment will be like heaping hot coals on his head, it may cause a change in heart, and the eternal will repay you.” – Proverbs 25:21-22
I gotta be honest, the verbiage of this Proverb has always confused me a bit…
Give your enemy a sandwich and a Coke, then you will be heaping burning coals on their head….BAHAAHAAA! (evil, maniacal laugh!!)
Is Solomon suggesting an alternative way to stick it to our enemies?
Be kind and you will REALLY burn them, kill them with kindness…
That seems a little messed up.
If our kindness kills, I don’t think it’s really, truly kindness.
Kindness can be confusing.
Human kindness can be hard for us humans!
It’s not our natural setting. Revenge and selfishness are most often our defaults.
Here’s what I’m learning…
In a world where hostility is the norm, kindness is shocking.
It’s like a defibrillator that shocks people back to life.
It is sudden and unexpected, it electrifies the heart.
Kindness can electrify the hardest heart, it can shock our enemy back to life.
Life is always the goal.
The picture of heaping hot coals on someone’s head is shocking.
BUT, I don’t believe it’s meant to burn.
It’s meant to awaken by whatever means necessary.
Kindness is meant to get the attention of someone and point them in the direction of a shocking hope.
Kindness is meant to shock someone back to life.
In the context of this scripture kindness is simply providing the most fundamental of human needs, food for the hungry and drink for the thirsty.
Here’s a shocker, together, kindness, food, and drink are seeds for friendship.
Let’s turn our enemies into friends.
Let’s shock the world to life!!
carbonated joy 