Be Gentle!

"Let your gentleness be evident to all." Philippians 4:5

One of the most frequent phrases that I hear myself yelling at my two-year-old son is, "Be Gentle!!!" For those of you who know Luke you will know exactly what I mean when I say that he is rough. Luke is all boy and plays so rough with my twin girls that are only 18 months old. I have to remind him to be gentle with the girlies all the time. When I tell him this he kind of gives me this look like, "Playing gently is no fun."

Well, as Christian adults our responsibility to be gentle does not have much to do with not body-slamming your sisters or dragging them across the floor by their feet. I think that our biggest challenge with gentleness today is in how we speak to other people. Our words can often be so rough and insensitive. Most of the time we don't realize our lack of gentleness, but sometimes we do. The Holy Spirit has gifted us with the fruit of gentleness. This means that a Christian can no longer say, "Well, my personality is not very gentle so I can't help that I hurt other people's feelings sometimes." No, no, that excuse will not work anymore because gentleness is in your heart because of the Holy Spirit. If Christians are not being gentle with others it is because they have chosen not to let that fruit ripen within their hearts so they can put it to good use.

When we choose not to use the gentleness that God has given us it is like telling God that you don't really want His gift. I don't know about you, but I want everything that God wants to gift me with! (Guess that means you will start seeing more gentleness out of me! LOL!)