Skip to main content

The Gentleness Challenge

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law."  Galatians 5:22

Most mothers want their mothering (and lives) to be filled with the fruit of the Spirit.  These fruit are characteristics that are rooted and growing in the heart and overflow into the speech, attitudes and actions.  These fruits are easy to identify and also easy to see where they may lack. 

The Gentleness Challenge is a focus on the fruit of gentleness in our lives.  This is an area I need some practice in!  Gentleness wasn't something I grew up with and a trait that with three sons, was not cultivated and grown.  But it is something I can identify in others and greatly admire.

Any area of life we want to improve must be dealt with by commitment and practicing and implementing the thing we want.  God's Word is a great place to start to put into our heart what we want to come out.

  • You have also given me the shield of Your salvation; Your gentleness has made me great.  II Samuel 22:36
  •  I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love,  endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Ephessians 4:1-3 
  • Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!   Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.  Phillipians 4:4-5 
  • But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. I Timothy 6:11
This week's plan of action is to smile more, hug more, slow down, listen, take a deep breath.  Gentlenss must be practiced and gains effectiveness during trying and difficult times. To practice and concentrate on being genuinely gentle!  Reading and meditating on God's Word and praying for the Holy Spirit to bring forth gentleness. 



Comments

  1. Good post! Timothy 6:11 especially speaks to me and you are right it is definitely PRACTICE (that is really hard!) to bring this fruit out!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for sharing your commment. It is a joy and blessing to hear from you and your words are appreciated.

Popular posts from this blog

Sometimes We Score, Sometimes We Block

Our family is in the midst of little league soccer season. My youngest son is playing and his enthusiasm is contagious. He is pretty good at the sport, but what makes it so great is that he loves it! He counts the days until the next game or practice. He loves his coach and teammates. He has moved up an age level this year and the players are working more like team, passing to each other and watching out for each other during play. During the last game, my son scored two goals, they were the only goals of the game. In today's game the team scored eight goals. My son came up afterwards to me and said, "I didn't score today, but I blocked". What a powerful truth those words can hold. In life, sometimes we score, sometimes we block. Sometimes we do great things, we excel, we achieve, we meet our goal - we score! There are also times we see the needs of others, sometimes they are sad or hurting, we block their hits. We look out for them so they can score. We...

WFW – Write It On My Heart

This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel       after that time, declares the Lord.    I will put My laws in their minds       and write them on their hearts.    I will be their God,       and they will be My people.  Hebrews 8:10 On a recent field trip to a museum featuring the days gone by, we sat in an old schoolroom as the teacher introduced us to the quill pen and bottle of ink.  She cautioned us to use extreme caution using the ink and told us that if it got on our skin or clothes, it would not come off. This reminded me of this beautiful promise from Hebrews.  God told His people he would put His law in their minds and write it on their hearts.  This is a covenant which cannot be broken.  He loves us and wants us to know Him through His Word.  As we read more and more of His Word, it becomes w...

Construction, Challenges, Chaos

 Who knew something simple could erupt into something chaotic so quickly? A broken file cabinet forced us to purchase a new one. We found one online, ordered it and it arrived quickly with a do it yourself assembly book, complete with 24 part packages and 18 steps of instructions!  As we unpacked the items and compared with the instruction book, we realized a part was missing. Customer service was called, a replacement part was quickly received. Except, the screws did not fit into the holes on the replacement part. We tried again, received another part, same issue.  Meanwhile, the 24 packages of parts are spread out on my living room floor, customer service does not understand my issue, they asked for photos which were sent and now we are again, waiting for a part.  It seems every project faces the inevitable delay. My work place is undergoing a floor remodel. Upheaval, dust, packing, lots of inconvenience and depending on the work crew's schedule dictate the next fe...