How wonderful to have a talent for making people feel at ease. Friendly people have those personalities that notice people and don’t wait to be noticed. Lucky you – use it wisely. Friendly is a personality trait but a more refined trait is kindness. Gal 5:22-23 gives us a good list, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness , and self-control”. Friendly is not on that list because it is the fruit of a person’s personality and not Holy Spirit. My Dad was friendly for the sake of friendliness. He just loved people. He was probably also kind but that is still a different thing. Holy Spirit nudges us toward people who need kindness. We are vessels of kindness as Holy Spirit leads and we pay attention. Friendly can be for our own purposes like an effective salesperson. Kindness is God’s work. There are Christians who cannot tell the difference. They smile big, talk loud, and think they are agents for God. Without kindness you are no more than a “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal”. We can all do better. So many people – so little time for some of us.
