Wednesday, May 29, 2019
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Galatians 5:22-23
Gentleness
is never to be confused with a lack of strength or resolve. Rather it is just the opposite; gentleness is the
strength to not react badly, but to receive others, faults and all. There were more than a few times that must
have pushed Jesus’ gentle nature to the limit.
The disciples could be fiercely loyal to Jesus, but they bordered on being
spiritually bi-polar. Simon Peter would
see the divine in Christ one day and lie like a newly elected politician saving
his hide the next day. James and John
loved Jesus but tried to leap-frog over their fellow disciples by asking Jesus
to make them King no.2 and 3 when He got to the throne. Of course, we all remember Judas’ kiss was a
betrayal, not friendly at all! Gentleness
sees faults like these as teachable moments to bring health and strength into
the lives of others; to bring out the best qualities, not scorch the ground
with retribution.
But,
sometimes bringing up those higher qualities may require a little heat. When our youngest child, Carrie, was about 6
or 7 she was allowed to go to her friend, Amber’s house, just around the block
from our place. Carrie was a very
cooperative child, always listening to Mom and Dad; but sometimes she would
forget. One such time she had been at
Amber’s after school having a great time and she lost track of the time. By the time she arrived back home the
streetlights had already come on against the coming nightfall. Carrie came skipping up our street in the
approaching darkness, so carefree and happy, even though she was well-past the
dusk curfew. It was not until she
reached our side door that she saw the grim reaper (me), standing, arms
crossed, scowl strategically in-place on my face. She looked up at her towering executioner and
gulped: I’m dead meat!
To this
day I’m not at all sure how I managed to keep that stern look when my insides
wanted to burst with laughter. The good
news is that our daughter endured the obligatory week’s grounding for
missing her curfew with grace and contrition; lesson learned!
Now, this
begs the question of how God is gentle, or can be described as gentle, when we
experience such unhappy things sometimes.
It’s my conviction that the reason God doesn’t let us off
the hook when we’ve lost track of who we are, and how we’re supposed to behave,
is that sometimes we must go through the darkness before we see the light. That may border on glib, or triteness, but it
makes sense, nonetheless. We learn best
when we experience the consequences of our actions. God may rescue us in the severest of
consequences, because He doesn’t want us lost…but when we do dumb stuff, or
trivial selfish things, we will often have to feel that isolation, that dead-meatness
of the circumstance which we create.
Mother was
right after all, the bed you make is the one you will sleep in!
For You Today
God’s gentle ways will help us through our foolishness, and even our
rebellion. But, it’s a good thing to
remember that he wants us to be that way towards the foolish and rebellious people
in our lives as well.
Go to VIDEO
[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©
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