I live in a nice neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, far from the city center and close to nature. My house is 1,300 meters from the main road. Since the buses only drive on the main road, I often give lifts to the people who live up my street, and I have had many opportunities to talk to them about Jesus, pray for them, as well as to instruct some on different issues of health or legal paperwork.
One such person was a single mom who had just moved here from a slum. She was trying to transfer her kids to the local public school. While giving her a lift to the main road, I found out she needed to take the enrollment paperwork to the school, but she didn’t have the money for the bus fare. I gave her the money she needed, said goodbye, and didn’t think more about it.
A few weeks later, my teenage son was coming home and his bus card had a problem and he didn’t have any cash on him. The bus driver was going to drop him in the middle of nowhere, but the single mom I had helped happened to be on that same bus, and she paid for his ticket so he could get home safely. The next time we met, with a twinkle in her eyes, she told me what she had done. It meant so much to her to be of help to others, even though she is very poor.
A member of my family was greatly helped by my mother during her youth. After my mother passed away, she was able to help me with paperwork and other urgent needs as I was a widow raising my kids alone. In recent years, my grown sons and I have in turn been able to help her on various occasions, which has made us very happy.
This is the “pay it forward” principle. Sometimes a simple act of kindness or generosity can run across nations and generations. The results may not be seen by us, but every kind act has a ripple effect, like throwing a pebble in a pond.
Kindness is also an expression of gratitude and faith. You show others how grateful you are for God’s blessings and that you want them to take part in those blessings, too. And you demonstrate your faith that you believe in His promise to supply your needs.
Even though people might not always appreciate or understand your efforts, there is a great big book in heaven where everything is being recorded, and like a boomerang, our kind deeds will always come back in our direction, either in this life or in the life to come.