Gentleness- Positive Influence Trait #8

Good morning everyone. Can I ask a question? Besides that one! When you think of the word gentleness, what comes to mind?

When I think of the word gentleness I think of BABIES!!! These tiny bundle of a blessings come into the world completely helpless and fragile. It’s absolutely necessary to be gentle with a baby. You can’t toss a newborn, you cannot swing a newborn. You need to cuddle and care for a newborn. You need to watch over and feed a newborn very carefully. Gentle touch soothes a crying newborn and a soft word calms a fussy little one.

But somewhere along the line we loose that gentleness. We let irritation, anger and annoyance come into play. We forget that gentleness is a necessity not just for a newborn- gentleness is required for EVERYONE. It is one of the attributes of a believer who is growing in their walk with God.

What you need before you have gentleness

LOVE- You cannot have gentleness without first having love. Love IS the ground work for Gentleness
JOY- believe it or not JOY is huge – Joy encourages our gentleness
PEACE is the root of our gentleness. It dives deep from our love and gives our gentleness strength.
PATIENCE is the backbone of our gentleness It gives our gentleness stability
GOODNESS is the REASON for our gentleness.
FAITHFULNESS keeps us gentle, even when it is hard.

Gentleness is the practice that leads to self-control (Yep that comes tomorrow).

Gentleness is an outpouring of all of the previous traits of a believer. And that gentleness seen in some believers is the greatest positive influence believers could ever have. Imagine of ALL believers had and practiced this kind of gentleness.

A quick study of the word gentleness/gentle in the Bible will land you in Proverbs,

Proverbs and Gentleness

Verse 1- A gentle answer deflects anger,
but harsh words make tempers flare.

This is the other thing that pops into my head when I hear the word Gentleness- this verse has been HUGE in my spiritual walk!

Verse 4-Gentle words are a tree of life;
a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.

Verse 28- The heart of the godly thinks carefully before speaking;
the mouth of the wicked overflows with evil words.

In Light of verse 4 and of the godly attributes listed in Galatians 5:22-23 This verse just goes on to speak of gentle words. And these verses come from just one Proverbs chapter- Chapter 15.

So many times we have this idea that gentleness is all about a soft touch but when we look at the Bible we see that most of the time gentleness is mentioned it’s about our speech.

And it is starkly contrasted with harsh speech Hence verse one of chapter 15.

We have a choice to make

Like all of the preceding traits we do have a choice to make. Are we going to deflect anger or are we going to fan the flame of it?

That’s a very hard heart question and one we have to take very seriously because our words are so influential. They can build up or they can cut down. They can encourage someone to reach their dreams or they can poke holes into the hearts f those who trust us. We have great power- we just need to choose how to use that power- The power of our influence- the power of our words AND our actions.

So what needs to change? We will ALL need to grow in this area throughout our lives. But what choices and changes can we make now to change our influence from a negative one to a positive one.

I am so glad that you have joined me today and I pray that these posts have been an encouragement and a challenge to your heart!