Advice Needed, Please Be Gentle
Advice Needed, Please Be Gentle
“Advice needed. Please be gentle…”
This was the opening line to a post shared in a gardening group on social media.
The author of the post went on to share that, though they needed help, they also needed sensitivity, as their questions involved relocating plants that had been taken from their recently deceased relative’s yard.
“I’m grieving right now, and can’t handle snarky, unhelpful comments, even if you think my questions are dumb.”
My first thought was, “Smart of them, to preface their questions like that. People can be real jerks.”
My next thought was, “How sad that they had to preface their questions like that, or even offer a valid reason for why others should be gentle with them in their responses.”
Alas, this is the reality of the world in which we live. And it’s not just the reality of the social media sphere. Social media just does a really good job of capturing life-sized portraits of the absolute worst qualities of humans, and putting them on display for all of us to take in the horror — our horror.
This highlights a truth about our fallen human condition, though, which is that gentleness is not a natural characteristic of sinful people. It’s an attribute of a perfectly good God.
That being said, those of us who are Christians might wrongly surmise that non-Christians are the reason for all the unsightly ungentleness we experience on social media or in our world as a whole today. But you don’t have to look too far or too long in any Christian group (on or offline) to discover how untrue that is!
Christians are sometimes, in my experience, far less gentle than their non-Christian counterparts. And I have to wonder if, perhaps, that’s because we Christians sometimes buy into the idea that the qualities of Jesus are ours by default — no dying to self required.
But here’s the truth: being a Christian does not automatically make you or me (or anyone else) gentler; surrendering to the Spirit of Jesus, empowered by His grace, allows us to choose to be gentle with others when our natural tendency is to be anything else.
In other words, when an opportunity to be less than gentle with someone arises (and trust me, it will), we can deny ourselves the opportunity to make someone else feel small by pointing out how little they know in comparison to us.
We can deny ourselves the opportunity to beat someone over the head for being “wrong” when we think that “they should know better.”
We can deny ourselves the opportunity to join the mob or hurl the insults or cast the stones.
We can deny ourselves…
And we can let the gentle Spirit of Jesus shine through us, in humility and patience and kindness, and in responding only with gracious words.
Being gentle is a conscious choice; and as followers of Jesus, it’s a choice you and I have been called to make.
… I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” - Ephesians 4:2-3 (NIV)
If there are people in the world who should be a safe space for others to come to with their thoughts, their questions, or their very beings, without having to preface their arrival with “please be gentle” or risk being crucified, it should be those of us who bear the name of Christ.
So here’s a question we should ask ourselves, as we go about our days:
Am I allowing the gentle Spirit of Jesus to alter my natural tendency toward ungentleness so that others can feel safe coming to me with all that they are?
Honest confession: I struggle with this. Maybe you do too. If so, this is a good opportunity for us to repent.
Here’s a little prayer that I wrote, for myself. Maybe it’ll resonate with someone else as well…
A Prayer in Response: Lord Jesus, you are so gentle with me. I confess that, in my natural self, I am not always gentle with others. But Your Word tells me that gentleness is a fruit of Your Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Give me eyes to recognize when and how I am being less than gentle with the people You’ve placed in my life; and teach me Your better way — Your gentle manner. When others encounter me, let them experience You. Amen.
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