Gentleness means recognizing that the world around us is fragile, especially in the lives of other people. It is recognizing our own capacity to do harm, and yet choosing rather to be tender, soft-spoken, soft-hearted, and careful.
To be careful means that you are becoming aware.
Perhaps this idea of becoming careful brings us closest to the idea. People who know exactly their own flaws become the most gentle of human beings. They are aware and now live for others, showing deep-seated care for even the “least.” We need people like this to become our elders and pastors.
Their authority looks wonderfully dressed in gentleness. Perhaps that kindness is far more important than preaching ability or administrative prowess? The best pastors I have known are those who are aware of others and who are therefore gentle and careful when touching another person’s heart and soul.
Jesus is gentle, just as much as He is strong, and wise and bold.
You could say He was always gentle, even when He was bold and authoritative. Not once did Jesus show unkindness in His words or teaching or actions. Grasping this is the work of a lifetime. (Matthew 11:28-30.)
He was kind all the time, even when He was tired and hungry. And even when He confronted the hard-hearted Pharisees. Perhaps, when angered, it was directed at the sin which was destroying people. Maybe?
“He will not crush the weakest reed
or put out a flickering candle.
Finally he will cause justice to be victorious.
And his name will be the hope
of all the world.”
Matthew 12:20-21, NLT
Some quotes:
“The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson, but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto.”
A.W. Tozer
“The higher people are in the favor of God, the more tender they are.”
Martin Luther
“Perhaps no grace is less prayed for, or less cultivated than gentleness. Indeed it is considered rather as belonging to natural disposition or external manners, than as a Christian virtue; and seldom do we reflect that not to be gentle is sin.”
Norman Bethune
“Gentleness is an active trait, describing the manner in which we should treat others. Meekness is a passive trait, describing the proper Christian response when others mistreat us.”
Jerry Bridges
