Kindness should be a characteristic of all who claim to be Christians. There is never a justifiable reason for speaking unkindly. It does not matter what the circumstances are. Whether we are talking to a waitress at a restaurant who mixed up our order, or a spouse with whom we are not seeing things eye to eye, speaking kindly is what God expects of us. ALWAYS! Why? Because kindness is a fundamental trait of a Christian.

1 Corinthians 13:4 (ESV)
⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant.

Paul is teaching us here how love behaves. If a person is not consistently kind, that person does not love the way God demands. Let us never forget that love is a command that we must all prac-tice if we want to be right with God.

1 John 4:21 (ESV)
²¹ And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Since we cannot please God without loving others, we know that He is unhappy with us when we treat others unkindly by misusing our tongues in some fashion. Some people use harsh and in-vective speech and call it constructive criticism; but, unkind words, no matter who you are talking to, is never constructive. They never build up; they simply tear down. Let us look at some com-mon ways that we can be unkind when we speak. This is important because, while sometimes people use harsh words to purposely injure, oftentimes people speak unkindly without realizing it. So, what are some behaviors that we must avoid if we never want to use our tongues unkindly. Here is a list:

Gossiping, lying, cursing, rudeness, being flippant, sarcasm, being too playful, etc.

These are all acts of unkindness perpetrated with the tongue. Some of them can be premeditated and planned, which is, without question, unkind. At other times, the acts are more personality based, such as rudeness and flippantness, perhaps even con-stantly being too playful. However, these are unkind uses of the tongue as well, and, in fact, they often demonstrate character issues that need addressing.

In the end, you may not be trying to be unkind when using certain expressions of speech, but that is exactly what you are doing when you speak in such ways. If you are in the habit of being rude or flippant, etc., that most likely comes from not thinking be-fore you speak. You need to realize that you are being unkind.

Whether a person is being purposely mean or has just developed a pattern of behavior that is employed unwittingly, the hurt caused by an uncontrolled tongue is largely the same. What each one must do is determine to be kind in every way. Once we deter-mine that, we will avoid being unkind in any way, including in the way that we speak to others.

As you wind down for the night, think on these things.