Tag: let your gentleness be evident to all

Be Gentle. People Break Easily.

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proverbs 15

“Be gentle,” I told her.

My baby girl was four years old and on her way to show-and-tell day at preschool.

There she sat in the minivan, cradling this tiny wind-up caterpillar toy, purple with polka-dots, in her four-year-old hands.   She’d rediscovered it in the toy bin the week before and declared it worthy of a trip to the school to show her classmates.

I had slipped that tiny $1 caterpillar into her stocking two Christamases ago and he was a survivor, more or less intact after all this time with only one missing antenna.

But was he up for the trip to the school?  Was he hardy enough to face one four-year-old and her 19 classmates?

I tested him out on our coffee table.  Wind, wind, wind and then I let him go.  He inched across the wood quickly and my daughter giggled at the sight.

That morning, we had scrambled out to the minivan, and I said it to her because I’m a mom and I have to say certain things, “Be gentle.   He will break easily.”

She nodded like I’m such a worrier.  Silly mom.  As if I didn’t already know that. 

I heard that toy buzz, buzz, buzzing during the drive.  I heard her tossing that cheap plastic around in her hands.

And then I heard those words:  “Oh mom, he broke!”

Sigh.

I refrained from “I told you so” and mom speeches.  I chose grace.

We arrived at the school where we gathered up the pieces of her toy and I hoped my English-major brain could figure out the engineering difficulties of a wind-up toy.

Somehow I managed to snap those pieces together. Success!  And then I carried him into her classroom and set him on the show-and-tell table.

She flashed me a smile and I knew I’d earned my Super-Mom cape for the day.

Later, she told the whole story to her big sisters: How mom saved the day by fixing him just in time.  She paused for dramatic effect and then said, “Really, Mom did that.”

But she left out one little part of the story….how he broke in the first place.  How she hadn’t been gentle enough.

This gentleness with others, isn’t it what we leave out so often?

Paul writes:

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near (Philippians 4:5 NIV).

We can make excuses about how we’re just “honest” or we “just tell it like it is.”  That’s just who we are.

We can assume the worst, lose patience, rage, condescend and degrade into sarcastic mocking when others disagree with us.

Or sometimes we have this way of being gentle to strangers, but that harshness, that short temper, that criticism oozes out to the loved ones sitting at our own dinner table.

Our husbands.  Our children.  We are their protectors.  We should be the healing salve to the hurts, treating wounds with tenderness and grace, overlooking failures, encouraging strengths, applauding efforts.

When we’re hurt, angry, frustrated, impatient, though, we tend to stab where it hurts most, highlighting faults and bruising the same feelings again and again.  It’s our self-defense; we wound others when we’re wounded.

Yet, gentleness isn’t a God-request.

It’s not a Holy Spirit suggestion or an option for good days, but something we can ignore on bad days when we’re stressed, tired, overwhelmed, or haven’t slept all night because we are, in fact, moms.

Paul tells us in Colossians that gentleness is the garb of Christ:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience (Colossians 3:12 NIV).

Gentleness is part of living Christ to the those around us, in our home and out of it.  We are to wrap ourselves in gentleness so others see Jesus in us.

“Be gentle.  People break easily.”

That’s the message I remind myself as I put that wind-up caterpillar back in the toy bin after his show-and-tell adventure.

A gentle tongue is a tree of life,
but perverseness in it breaks the spirit (Proverbs 15:4 ESV).

The tongue has the power of life and death,
and those who love it will eat its fruit (Proverbs 18:21 NIV).

The words of the reckless pierce like swords,
but the tongue of the wise brings healing (Proverbs 12:18 NIV).

Gracious words are a honeycomb,
sweet to the soul and healing to the bones (Proverbs 16:24 NIV).

When Christians Eat Their Own

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philippians4-5

We didn’t know the guinea pig was a girl, much less a pregnant female, when we carried her home from the pet store.

The pet store left out all that info.

I remember my mom instructing us kids not to look into our new guinea pig’s cage one morning because our new pet had given birth in the night.

And she had started to eat her own young before we discovered it and could rescue all of them.

It’s a harsh truth for a child: Nature can be cruel.

It’s not any easier as an adult.  We civilized adult human beings—Christians even—are sometimes just as cruel.

Because we Christians sometimes eat our own, too.

About ten years ago, I sat at a dinner table with new acquaintances, Christian women gathered for an evening out.  One woman casually mentioned that it was her husband’s ‘hobby’ to be a sort of doctrinal police for all of Christianity.  He scouted out mis-steps by any and every Christian pastor or teacher and then publicly and scathingly denounced them on his website.  Apparently, it was ‘fun’ for him.

Look up any current public Christian figure and you’ll see the accusations fly: Beth Moore, Kay Arthur, Rick Warren, Priscilla Shirer.  They’ve all taken a beating.

Some pastors and teachers do distort Scripture.  They are false teachers.

But not all of them.  Probably not even most of them.

Yet, there are some who use their own pulpits and blogs to mock and condemn as many others as possible.

I’ve seen it myself.  I’ve read a book and then heard the author denounced for things he didn’t say, for quotes lifted entirely out of context and twisted to take on deformed misrepresentations of the author’s intent.

The author hadn’t said that, didn’t mean that, never even implied that.  But he was condemned anyway.

When in doubt, read the book yourself.  Listen to the sermon yourself.  Check the context.

Does it mean when there is real un-truth, real manipulation of Scripture, real abuse that we should just let it go?

Not at all.

But it shouldn’t be ‘fun.’

It should break our hearts to see Scripture mangled, God’s character misrepresented and His people deceived.  And we should hold ourselves to the highest standard of Biblical obedience by actually obeying God’s Word ourselves.

Respond with gentleness. 

The Bible is unmistakable about how we should defend truth:

  • Galatians 6:1 ESV
    Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.
  • Ephesians 4:15 ESV
    Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ
  • 2 Timothy 2:24-25 ESV
     And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness.
  • Titus 3:2 NIV
    to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone.
  • 1 Peter 3:15 NIV
    But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect

Show gentleness, respect, patience, and love, particularly when confronting opposition.  Do not be quarrelsome.  Do not slander.

So, when that preacher mocks another Bible teacher from the pulpit or that blogger rails with unconcealed anger and rampant name-calling against another author, we can ask:

Are they correcting with gentleness, respect, humility and with a broken heart? 

If not, then aren’t they also abusing Scripture and their platform under the guise of protecting their followers from deception?

We Christians eat our own.

We mob-attack best-selling authors.  We categorize any preacher with a large church and a podcast audience as tainted.

Yet, in the book of Acts when Priscilla and Aquilla heard the popular preacher Apollos speak, they realized he was missing part of the truth.  He was teaching in error (Acts 18).

Did they take to the streets of Athens to make fun of his latest book?

Did they rip him apart in an Amazon review or blog-attack his message and question his own personal faith?

Did they put him on some spiritual blacklist, mock him, call him names, and shame anyone who ever listened to one of his sermons?

No, they brought him into their home.  They cooked him dinner and shared truth somewhere between the main course and dessert.

Apollos humbly embraced their instruction because they talked to him with gentleness and respect instead of using it as a platform for division and judgment within the church.

Paul said,

Let your gentleness be evident to all (Philippians 4:5 NIV).

It should be a sign of our faith.  People should not look at Christians and see spiritual cannibals waiting to devour the next poor victim who publishes a book or grows his church.

They should see Christ’s gentleness—strength with restraint, truth with humility, always driven by love.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

 

Wind-Up Toy Caterpillar Versus Four-Year-Old, A Lesson in Gentleness

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“Be gentle,” I tell her.

She’s cradling this tiny wind-up caterpillar toy, purple with polka-dots, in her four-year-old hands.   Last week, she re-discovered it in the toy bin and declared that it was worthy of show-and-tell.

So, she’s waited with excitement all week for that one morning when she could tote it into school and show it to her classmates.winduptoy

I slipped that tiny $1 caterpillar into her stocking two Christamases ago and here he is a survivor.  More or less intact, he’s only lost one antenna.

But is he up for the trip to the school?  Is he hardy enough to face one four-year-old and her 19 classmates?

I test him out on our coffee table.  Wind, wind, wind and then I let him go.  He inches across the wood quickly and my daughter giggles at the sight.

We scramble that morning to the minivan, though, all breathless with feeling late, feeling busy, feeling overwhelmed by the day and it’s not even 9 in the morning.

And I say it quickly to her because I’m a mom and I have to say certain things, “Be gentle.   He will break easily.”

She nods like I’m such a worrier.  Silly mom.  As if I didn’t already know that. 

I hear that toy buzz, buzz, buzzing during the drive.  I hear her tossing that cheap plastic around in her hands.

And then I hear her, “Oh mom, he broke!”

Sigh.

I refrain from “I told you so” and mom speeches.  I choose grace.

We arrive at the school and she finds the pieces that had fallen into the pile of lost fruit snacks, french fries and broken crayons on the minivan floor.

Then, I hold three separate parts of a purple plastic caterpillar and hope my English-major brain can figure out the engineering difficulties of a wind-up toy.

Somehow I manage to snap those pieces together.  I test him out–success!  And then I carry him into her classroom and set him on the show-and-tell table.

She flashes me a smile and I know I have earned my Super-Mom cape (and maybe some chocolate as a reward).

Later, she tells the whole story to her sisters: How mom saved the day by fixing him just in time.  She pauses for dramatic effect and then says, “Really, Mom did that.”

I am now the stuff of Super-Mom legends.

But she leaves out one little part of the story….how he broke in the first place.  How she hadn’t been gentle enough.

This gentleness with others, isn’t it what we leave out so often?

Paul writes it here:

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near (Philippians 4:5 NIV).

We can can make excuses about how we’re just “honest” or we “just tell it like it is.”  That’s just who we are.philippians4-5

We can assume the worst, lose patience, rage, condescend and degrade into sarcastic mocking.

Or sometimes we have this way of being gentle to strangers, but that harshness, that short temper, that criticism oozes out to the loved ones sitting at our own dinner table.

Too often, we know the weakness of the ones we love.

Our husbands.  Our children.  We are their protectors.  We should be the healing salve to the hurts, treating wounds with tenderness and grace, overlooking failures, encouraging strengths, applauding efforts.

When we’re hurt, angry, frustrated, impatient, though, we tend to stab where it hurts most, highlighting faults and bruising the same feelings again and again.  It’s our self-defense; we wound others when we’re wounded.

Yet, gentleness isn’t a God-request.  It’s not a Holy Spirit suggestion or an option for good days that can be ignored on bad days when we’re stressed, tired, overwhelmed, or haven’t slept all night because we are, in fact, moms.

Paul tells us in Colossians that gentleness is the garb of Christ:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience (Colossians 3:12 NIV).

Gentleness is part of living Christ to the those around us, in our home and out of it.  We are to wrap ourselves in it so others see Jesus in us.

“Be gentle.  People break easily.”

That’s the message I remind myself as I put that wind-up caterpillar back in the toy bin after his show-and-tell adventure.

A gentle tongue is a tree of life,
but perverseness in it breaks the spirit (Proverbs 15:4 ESV).

The tongue has the power of life and death,
and those who love it will eat its fruit (Proverbs 18:21 NIV).

The words of the reckless pierce like swords,
but the tongue of the wise brings healing (Proverbs 12:18 NIV).

Gracious words are a honeycomb,
sweet to the soul and healing to the bones (Proverbs 16:24 NIV).

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King