Gentleness

You have also given me the shield of Your salvation; Your right hand has held me up, Your gentleness has made me great (Psalm 18:35)

One of the fruit of the spirit that the Father deposited in us in the new birth is gentleness as the King James Version reads or as most translations read as kindness. The best definition that I’ve come across for gentleness is a sweetness of temper which puts others at ease and shrinks from giving pain.

Donald Gee calls it strength under perfect control. Hydraulic power is able to crush metal or punch holes through thick steel, yet is able also with a careful operator to crack a walnut without destroying it. Gentleness is seen in a great athletic strong man who does not manhandle his wife and children. In kindness with a gracious, sweet spirit, stands firm for what is right and corrects what is wrong. He’s not quick-tempered and domineering, but is soft-spoken, firm and in self control.

Gentleness is not weakness. Gentleness is the ability to hold yourself in check. Gentleness is moral integrity. Gentleness is the desire to do the right thing in relation to others.

Many times people who assert themselves in the crowd are the ones with the weakest character. The bully on the playground picks on the other kids due to his insecurity. The loudest person in a praise service could be the weakest and is simply increasing the decibels seeking to assert some kind of spirituality (but please balance this out because that’s not always true)!

Gentleness enables us to control ourselves and remain calm and caring when others don’t treat us the way we think they should. Gentleness is one of God’s character traits that He desires that we manifest.

Notice the scriptures (The same Greek Word is translated both gentleness and kindness):

But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil (Luke 6:35). That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:7).

God has called each one of us to sweetness of temper that puts others at ease and shrinks from giving pain. Make these scriptures on gentleness a part of your meditation today:

And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will (2 Timothy 2:24-26). Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering (Colossians 3:12). And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you (Ephesians 4:32). To speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men (Titus 3:2). By purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love (2 Corinthians 6:6). But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy (James 3:17).