The fruit of the Gentleness, a blessing to one and all

My wife has often counselled me in the act of speaking to our son; “Lower your voice,” and it works a treat. She noticed me interacting with older children at the school I work at; “Your voice is softer, lower, slower... calmer... and they listen!”

Then we recall an Australian children’s show called, “Bluey,” where the youngest character is overwhelmed by her father’s enthusiastically rough play—Bingo the pup learns to yelp when she’s had enough. I’m coaching my son to tell me when I’m being too loud. But truly, he needs me to regulate my own volume.

You see, I’ve had people behave loud and angrily with me, and it seldom works. Boisterousness never works on sensitive souls, unless they’re in playful moods, and let’s face it, none of us are playful all the time.

I’ve very often not only been put off by brute force, it’s often left me feeling intimidated—that is I’m left timid in response, and nobody gets anything out of a person who is relegated to timidity.

I’m not ashamed of being able to be intimidated. It’s cause and effect. Just because we’re intimidated doesn’t mean we’re weak. It means the person who intimidated us missed the mark.

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Gentleness is a sacred gift that proves its truth comes from love.

Being gentle in all we say and do comes from a quiet centre.

If only we can be gentle with ourselves, not judging ourselves, resisting our own condemnation, quashing the temptation to feel guilty for any number of things, then we can be gentler for others.

If we can be gentler with ourselves, we can be gentler with others so that they, too, could be gentler with themselves.

There is more to gentleness than we realise. To be genuinely gentle, we truly need to be empathetic, which is to be understanding, and not only of others, but more truly and more centrally understanding of ourselves.

If we have no empathy for ourselves, or in other words if we do not understand and accept ourselves, how on earth can we have empathy for other people in order to endeavour to understand and therefore accept them?

Whether we like it or not, we need to feel safe in our own skin first, and that’s nothing about selfishness—it’s about safety.

I don’t know about you, but my belief is I cannot fully understand and accept myself apart from Christ. I’ve tried many other ways prior to coming to Christian faith. None of them worked. The only thing in my experience that works is a message that doesn’t rely on my goodness, but that which rests on God’s grace alone.

Having found the secret then to being understood and finding ourselves acceptable i.e. in Christ, we come to be at peace with ourselves, and, having sensed the power for love in that, we therefore then want others to experience that same peace which is power for love.

We may ask ourselves, if God understands us and accepts us, who are we not to?

This is the most penetrating question. Anyone who lingers on such a question should assuredly come to find that if God never condemns us, who are we if we do?

Let me finish where I started.

Gentleness is ever the gift to every single living thing. To be gentle is also a gift to us, as direct benefactors of the gifts of self-control, patience and peace.