We began this series by looking at the dangers of forgetting who we truly are, especially in terms of neglecting our God-given identity in Christ. We're not straying very far from that line of thinking with today's post, and really what links the two together is the idea of humility. Humility, as the opposite of pride or arrogance, is sometimes misconstrued as thinking very lowly of yourself and maybe never even acknowledging if you do something well. But what humility can be boiled down to, in one sense, is a realistic view of yourself and your abilities. And if we consider our own wisdom in humility, we are forced to confront the reality that we do not know best.

Before we launch into this new book study, I feel like I should preface with the fact that the underlying messages in Broken Aether are not actually what I thought they were going to be. Thinking back to when I started writing this book, the thought was to send a message about the importance of kindness and doing the right thing (shocker, I know). But while there are some ways that the story highlights kindness, that ended up being a far more prominent theme of Ashes. Instead, Broken Aether became something different- something more focused on going against the grain, doing the right thing no matter what, and understanding where exactly we fall in God’s design.
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So. Let’s get into it.

​As you might imagine, most of the emphasis on kindness in Ashes falls to Ember, as the Cinderella character of this Cinderella retelling. But she’s not the only one with notable acts of kindness. Ember is joined on her adventure by Lord Ksa, the next leader of a powerful ruling city and someone who has lived his entire life surrounded by certain ideals of superiority and elitism. However, Ksa himself is not weighed down by those ideals, and his humility and kindness become some of the most notable parts of his character.

​It feels right that I should start this off by answering the question, “What’s the deal with kindness, anyway?” It’s a theme in most of my books, an obvious focus of Ashes, and now the subject of a devotional to accompany that story. So why? Why do I never seem to let the idea of kindness go?

The short answer is that it’s important, and I guess I could leave it at that. But clearly, I’m not, so brace yourselves for the significantly longer answer. Yes, kindness is important. But it is also consistently misunderstood. So often when people talk about kindness, it’s unclear what they actually mean. It’s a word that’s slapped in slogans and positioned in reminders, but in many cases, there’s no real meaning behind it. No “umph,” if you will. It’s an empty word, used as a fleeting reminder to be a better person because, in general, the world is cruel. But to view kindness as an empty, vague catchphrase is a mistake that I think can prevent us from actually succeeding in being kind.