BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

Commander Kellie’s Corner Bee Kind Bee Kind. I didn’t mistake my spelling of be. As I was thinking about how important it is to be kind, the Lord reminded me of the bee. So after some research, I realized that the bee is a great example of what happens when we spread kindness and love. This example is true when we spread unkindness or gossip as well! Bees are known for being busy. They go from flower to flower, plant to plant, collecting pollen to bring back to the hive to feed the young bees. The funny thing is, they do more than they realize when collecting pollen. As the bees land on a flower, the pollen collects on their legs. When they fly to the next flower, the bees not only collect more pollen for the hive, but they also leave behind some of the pollen that was stuck to their legs. That may not seem important, but that one little action of spreading pollen from plant to plant is what causes more flowers to grow. More importantly than this for you and me, this process of pollination is what makes plants and flowers produce fruit, nuts, seeds, and more plants and flowers. Without the busy bee, plants could not produce more plants. He just lives his life, doing what he does, never realizing that he is making fruit happen. Pollination is a good thing and produces good fruit! The word fruit doesn’t just mean apples and oranges kind of fruit. The word FRUIT can mean anything produced as a result or effect. For example, the activity of the bee not only produces pollination which makes actual fruit happen, it produces honey—another fruit (result) of the bee’s activity. HONEY is one of my favorite things the bee makes! How could something that can sting you make something so sweet? Like the bee, our words can bring something sweet or hurtful to our lives and the lives of those around us, even when we don’t realize the effect we are having on others when we speak. Proverbs 16:24, "New Living Translation" says, “Kind words are like honey—sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.” Verses 27 and 28 go on to say, “Scoundrels create trouble; their words are a destructive blaze. A troublemaker plants seeds of strife; gossip separates the best of friends.” The words we speak and the actions we take are our own choice and that means that the resulting fruit of those words and actions is our choice too. We can have fruit that’s sweet or fruit that stings. Humans are much like the plants and flowers. We thrive from our connections with others. We need each other, so how we treat one another is important. Bee-ing Kind When you are kind to someone, you leave a little kindness behind with that person. Kindness, love and joy are like pollen. When you show love to someone, they tend to spread love to others too. A loved person is more likely to spread love. This is true for other positive emotions and actions like joy, peace, excitement, mercy—you get the idea. Bee-ing Mean Like Proverbs says, strife, gossip and unkind words bring trouble and hurt to others. When we pass these words and actions on to others, they can spread quickly from person to person just like kindness does. The difference is that instead of something sweet, hurtful fruit is the result. For example, a person gossips (tells something unkind or bad about another person) and that person tells another and another, and what happens? Hurtful words spread from person to person. Because of one unkind “bee sting,” someone is hurt. Then the hurt person can become another busy little unkind bee that stings someone else. You can see how quickly the hurts add up! And those hurts can last a long time. Proverbs 26:22 says, “Rumors are dainty morsels that sink deep into one’s heart.” But verse 20 tells us that we can put a stop to them! “Fire goes out without wood, and quarrels disappear when gossip stops.” Now, read Proverbs 16:24 again and compare the fruit, “Kind words are like honey—sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.” When we decide to Bee Kind, the results are wonderful! We can go from hurts to honey, from stings to sweet! Superkid, I know you want your fruit to be sweet. Psalm 19:8 tells us, “The commandments of the LORD are right, bringing joy to the heart.” We know that His commandment is to love, so we can pray this prayer from Psalm 19:14 and decide to let the love of God BEE OUR POLLEN, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” So, Bee Love, Bee Kind and Bee Joyful! I’ll Bee Back, Commander Kellie ♥ Kellie Copeland is responsible for Covenant Partner Relations at Kenneth Copeland Ministries and is the developer of the Superkid Academy curriculum. Through her ministry and as “Commander Kellie,” she fulfills the mission of drawing people of all ages into a personal, growing and powerful relationship with Jesus Christ. BVOV : 31

• Cover