“And be ye kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake, hath forgiven you.” ~Ephesians 4:32
I’m scared that gentleness is dying. I think it’s taken one too many gut-punches from preachers on Twitter and the presidential election season, kids on Facebook and that Condescending Wonka dude. Gentleness is a thing so tender and, yet, so strong that the courage required to exhibit it is nearly extinct. People are rough these days with others, and, even more tragically, they are rough with themselves.
It is easy to be cruel. It’s easy to be hard and dark. It is easy to be cold, calculating and condescending. Gentleness requires grace, and patience. It requires love of the agape sort, that love that needs nothing in return. Gentleness is precious, like the Word during Samuel’s time, when children ministered to their elders, and God whispered mysteries in their ears. The priests didn’t recognize precious things back then, and they do not recognize them now.
I don’t know what hard road you’ve traveled. I don’t know what scars you bear. I hope the tears you’ve cried have not hardened your heart; I pray they have strengthened it, and softened it. I pray your heart has been gentled, like a thoroughbred stallion who can now be touched by human hands.
Please, don’t miss out on this…
“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” ~John 13:35