How Well Do Your Genes Fit?

Do you know anyone who is kind and compassionate?  Well, according to a study released by a group of scientists in November and published this week, they might not be able to help it; it might be in their genes.  I hadn’t been listening very closely to the television and only caught part of the news story so  I felt surely I hadn’t heard correctly until I turned to google and found an article entitled “A Kindness Gene?  Scientists Say Caring, Trustworthiness May Be in Our DNA”.

Seriously?  Has our society reached the point where we will actually spend money to try to figure out why people would be kind and compassionate?  I am well aware that some people consider it at sign of weakness or roadmap for danger, but I can’t imagine that a group of scientists would seriously pursue a scientific reason.  At first I had vision of people sadly shaking their head at modern-day Good Samaritans and commenting “You know he really can’t help it.  He has that kindness gene.”  Or conversely I saw geneticists sitting on the witness stands in court rooms testifying how plaintiffs couldn’t help committing certain crimes because they had not “kindness gene” markers.  I shuddered to think of the possibilities!

But then it hit me!  I don’t really believe they are searching for “kindness” or any gene that may or may not cause it.  I think they have noticed that there is something different about people who treat others with kindness, and they want to know what makes them different.

Unfortunately, they are looking in the wrong place; the answer is not in their genes but in their heart.

We are definitely not born with a propensity to be nice and loving.  We are born with all the opposite traits – we are born sinners.  It isn’t a gene that makes us act with kindness; it is the Holy Spirit.

Our genes dictate our eye color, our height, our gender… all things we cannot change unless we do artificially.   To say that we are born with genes that make us act a certain way would be to insinuate we cannot change.  I wonder what the Jews that lived during the time Saul/Paul was alive would say about that.  Early in his adult life he was known as one of the meanest soldiers in the Roman army.  His goal was to kill as many Christians as he could.  He even held the cloaks of the men who stoned Stephen to death.  BUT then he met Jesus and realized what a horrible sinner he was.

After he asked forgiveness for his sins and received the Holy Spirit, he completely changed from a soldier on a death march to a missionary willing to endure any hardship to spread the gospel of Christ.

 THAT’S what they are looking for!