Sowing the Seeds of Gentleness

      Gentleness is one of the most difficult God-glorifying fruits to bear (Galatians 5:23).  After all, when things occur that make us angry it is so hard to vent that anger gently.  When people do things that are wrong, it is so easy to take the path of superiority and put them in their place (especially if they have done that to us in the past).

      As with all of the Spirit’s fruit, we must not be overwhelmed, thinking about how hard it is to be meek and gentle.  Instead, we must simply work on planting seeds that will bear gentleness in our lives.

      If we want to bear God-glorifying gentleness, we need to sow the seed of honesty.  We are not talking about always telling the truth to others, but always telling the truth to ourselves.  As Paul said in Romans 12:3, we must not think more highly of ourselves than we ought.

      We must remember exactly who we are, what we have done and what God has done for us.  We must remember that we have sinned against God.  When we did, we deserved God’s wrath and punishment, we wanted God’s gentleness.  And that is exactly what He has offered us (Matthew 11:29).  A good memory of our own mistakes, follies and sins will help us deal meekly with others.

      If we are going to bear God-glorifying gentleness, we need to sow the seed of prayer.  Certainly, we need to pray that God give us the strength to be meek and gentle.  But just as importantly, we need to spend time praying for others (I Timothy 2:1-2).

      Praying for others take our minds off ourselves and our wants, granting us a mindset that looks out for others and their needs.  Gentleness comes from putting others before us and above us.  When we spend time praying for them, we are honoring them and realizing how important they are.  If they are that important, how can we be anything but meek and gentle with them?

      If we will bear God-glorifying gentleness, we need to sow the seed of pressing the pause button.  That sounds odd, but we are not talking about tape players.  We are talking about our lives.  We typically act and react so quickly that we do not give much thought to what we are doing when we respond to others.  We need to follow the example of Nehemiah in Nehemiah 5:6-7.

      The people were sinning and Nehemiah was angry.  But before he responded to them and rebuked them, he gave the matter serious thought.  When people say and do things that threaten our gentleness, we need to hit the pause button and think seriously before we respond.

      We do not need to be overwhelmed by all that this God-glorifying fruit entails.  Instead, we must simply sow the seeds that will bear gentleness.  How many seeds will we sow this week?

Edwin L. Crozier