Mean kids need nice kids too

 

The spit pit and flagpole were modern-day torture chambers at my junior high. Every couple of months, small and usually friendless students would be hung by their belt loops from the flagpole or thrown into the spit pit, an exterior stairwell that led to locked doors, where they were spat on.

The culprits of such cruelty were the bullies of our school. No surprise there, but every one of us bystanders who did nothing to defend or help the victims of such abuse shared some of the blame for their misery.

Mark 12:31 implores believers to love their neighbors (i.e., classmates) as themselves. Do that and you’ll automatically be a “nice kid.”

Candace, my 17-year-old niece, told me recently that mean kids are a part of life at her high school and probably at every school. “One girl stands at her locker and says mean things about everyone who walks by,” she says. “I guess she does it so she feels better about herself.”

What’s ironic is that a lot of mean kids are the ones who have the most going for them. Many are from well-to-do families — and they’re good looking, talented and smart. But beneath the façade many of these mean kids are insecure, shallow, selfish, disrespectful, dishonest, irresponsible and scared.

It seems insane, but the mean kids really do need the nice kids as much as the kids who are picked on by the mean kids.

In other words, all of your non-Christian classmates need Jesus.

The question is: Will you be nice enough to show them Him?

Kirk Noonan

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