Simply Edify
We are Simply Edify. Our mission is to help strengthen your walk with the Lord. Our goal is to encourage women as we navigate the messiness of life through Biblical studies, personal stories, and practical tips that bolster our walk with Jesus daily.
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Simply Edify
Gentle Heart
Are you a gentle person? Join us as we explore the concept of gentlenss in the believer's life, challenging the notion that gentleness is simply a personality trait and instead uncovering its roots as a fruit of the spirit.
Through the lens of biblical teachings, we look at Christ himself to understand the power of gentleness in action. Discover how acknowledging our imperfections and repentance can open the door to greater humility and kindness.
This episode is based on a devotion from our 31- Day Devotional called, Issues of the Heart. You can find this at Amazon. https://a.co/d/7IKduub
Hello and welcome to Simply Edifies podcast. Our goal is to encourage women as we navigate the messiness of life through biblical studies, personal stories and practical tips that bolster our walk with Jesus daily. Thank you for joining us in our episode today.
Speaker 2:We are going back into our study from our newest book, issues of the Heart, our newest book, issues of the Heart, and today we're talking about the topic of a gentle heart. And when April said reminded me of a topic, I was like ew, I don't want to do this. And it's a convicting one. Yes, that's why it's a good one. It's a convicting one. Yes, that's why it's a good one. It's just convicting because the first question at the top of the page, um, when you open up, it's chapter 13 of our, our devotional um, the question is are you gentle? And is that a hard question to answer? And I guess that would kind of depend on how you define gentle.
Speaker 2:Um, you know we like definitions and this is a list of antonyms or opposites, for gentle mean severe, disagreeable, unfeeling, wild, loud, cruel, harsh, unfriendly, violent, uncompassionate, callous, rough, unkind, troubled, low, crude, hard, merciless, unhappy, agitated, sharp, irritable, surly and hateful. So if you dare go back through that list and ask yourself, am I, instead of maybe, am I gentle, am I mean, am I unkind? Am I mean, am I unkind? Am I troubled, troubled, am I irritable, am I surly?
Speaker 1:and you can see, maybe, why I didn't want to do this right yeah, I think something for myself when it comes to gentleness is a while ago I I had this revelation from the Lord, I guess you could say, where I would always think of gentle people as just like kind of mousy, quiet, like not very outgoing, just an idea in my mind was a personality, and I realized that gentleness is not a personality.
Speaker 1:Gentleness is a fruit of the spirit and you, you do not have to be a super timid, shy person to be gentle. And I think that was kind of a well, more of a ouch for myself, because I can very well fit into some of these antonyms of gentle, uncompassionate, rough, like just say it how it is type temperament. I guess you could say personality right. And so we blame our personality for not following what God has for us and having the fruit of the spirit in our life. And I realized that like that was kind of one of the big things when it came to being gentle and merciful for me. Like no, it has nothing to do with your personality, I don't you know, I don't care.
Speaker 1:If, yes, maybe you're more of a truth teller, you're still responsible for doing it with gentleness and having compassion and mercy, and so that was kind of like my takeaway when I was just studying gentleness as a whole personally for myself. One time I was like, yeah, it's not about a personality, it's not about myself. One time I was like, yeah, it's not about a personality, it's not about you know how outgoing you are. And that's the thing where I think in our culture today there's a lot of women who are just like, well, I'm going to say it how it is and I don't care about the consequences, and blah blah. I can just shoot off the truth because it's my truth, or I can just tell it like it is and it doesn't matter how or whatever. And that's not true. As a Christian, as a believer, gentleness matters.
Speaker 2:Well, there is a danger in hanging everything on your personality, because our personality I mean God does use our personality and I think it's.
Speaker 2:It is good to know your strengths and your weaknesses. So, knowing your personality, or accepting to an extent your personality is, is healthy. But, like you said, what you have to remember is there are certain things that are personalities and there are certain things that are the fruit of the spirit. So, even like joy is not something you can choose to not be sullen, and I do think choosing joy is is true to an extent, but it's also what it really is is allowing the holy spirit to make you joyful right, not so much choosing to grin and bear it right and so yeah, so even this gentleness you can say you know, I want to be gentle, but ultimately it's not so much like willing yourself to be gentle as much as it is allowing jesus to change your heart and always have control enough that you can be gentle, right, and so there's those, all those kind of words that those ugly words that we used are the things that you do have to weed out.
Speaker 2:So I think that's more of our responsibility than creating gentleness. It's more like making room for gentleness, so removing that sharp rebuttal or that making allowances for yourself to be irritable yeah it's really honestly.
Speaker 1:it just goes back to that whole struggle of the flesh and the spirit. And I was reading in Proverbs the other day that verse that talks about how a man with no rule over his spirit is like a city with broken down walls. And that's not an exact quote, but that was the idea of the proverb. And when we do not exercise self-control which again is a fruit of the spirit, when we do not have that temperance in our life and we do not even try to attempt to work on pulling out these negative weeds that grow in our life, just like you said, there is no room for anything good. It's just a continual cycle of bad. So we can't just keep all of those things and then pile on a heap of gentleness and expect that to stay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not going to work and expect that to stay. Yeah, like that's not going to work. I heard a video of myself teaching a lesson to my kindergarten students last year and I was recording and I knew I was recording.
Speaker 2:And I was listening to my voice and I'm like I wonder if I would have sounded as pleasant had I known that I was recording Now. Then I would have been mean for the record. But just like there's like this patience when you're being held accountable, yes, and just like the tone in my voice, I was like, oh, you just sound like such a so just, patient and loving and kind and like. But are you Right? Are you all the time?
Speaker 1:No, no and that's the thing. Like our kids know our tone of voice when we're at home as opposed to when we're not, and that's kind of more like honestly, like it's easier to be that kind of gentle with other people's children or right by the home.
Speaker 2:But then I'm like, do I use that same? That's really what I was thinking more like. Do I use that tone with my children when I'm teaching them?
Speaker 1:right when you've gone over the same concept a million times and you're like why are we not getting this?
Speaker 2:it's true. But you know, again, our example is Jesus and he has that gentle spirit and it's not, again, not weakness. Jesus was not weak and I love the definition of meek, which I know is not.
Speaker 2:I know gentle and meek is different, but when you think about meekness as being strength, that's power or strength that's under control and that's being used to help people right and when you think about meekness like that, it really changes a lot of how you even read, like the accounts of Christ, where he's talking about meekness and talking about gentleness and he's not talking about like this mousy.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Do nothing, nod and smile.
Speaker 1:Personality, he's saying you know, there's a strength, there is a deep strength in someone who is very gentle, right in someone who is very gentle Right and I think of I think it was Moses that God said was there was not a man that was meager than Moses and he was a. He was a leader, right, sure, like he kind of didn't want to be put in that position because of, like, his speech, whatever issues, but he was still a very strong leader.
Speaker 2:And it's.
Speaker 1:It's kind of interesting to me because, like Moses says that at first, like I don't want to speak in front of the people type thing, but then how many times do we read accounts of Moses addressing the whole congregation? And it's with power and authority. And he, he did come into that because God helped him and God enabled him and god knew he was going to do that. He gave him aaron to begin with, but eventually it got to the point where moses realized that with god he he didn't have to necessarily have aaron.
Speaker 1:I think that kind of um growth process can happen with us as well.
Speaker 1:Like we can say why I'm not gentle right now in these areas, you know, I struggle to be gentle with my husband, I struggle to be gentle with my kids can happen with us as well.
Speaker 1:Like we can say well, I am not gentle right now in these areas, you know I struggle to be gentle with my husband, I struggle to be gentle with my kids, and I know that this is an issue for me. It is possible, not in our own strength, but with the help of the Lord, when we pray about it and when we truly continually surrender, pray about it and when we truly continually surrender and it takes a discipline like a focused discipline of concentrated effort we can see victory in in areas like I remember um, there was an account I followed on instagram and she does like a gentleness challenge because it was something that she realized again in her house, in her heart, where she was kind of struggling with gentleness, like just in tone of voice and addressing people and talking to her kids and stuff like that, where she did a focus challenge of you know, two weeks having her family and her kids hold her accountable for her tone of voice and for how she interacted. Right, and that's definitely not something that I would like to do.
Speaker 2:You can see my face right now my face is like yeah, what have my?
Speaker 1:kids tell me I'm not being gentle, what? But really it does take sometimes that accountability to to recognize and be like okay, somebody's telling me that I'm not being gentle.
Speaker 2:And gentleness really does beget gentleness. You can tell children who have gentle parents and not. I know there's that whole term of like gentle parenting and that's not what we're talking about. No, we're talking about gent but, but there is. So gentle parenting is actually a very good thing.
Speaker 2:The, the movement of gentle parenting, goes into nuances that are not right, we agree with, but as far as like being it, there's nothing wrong with being a gentle parent, because we're called to be gentle, so, right, it's a gentleness god is. Our father has been very gentle with us, right and again it's. It's when we restrain ourselves right and approach our children, even in correction, with kindness, with mercy, with, not in a callous way, not in an unkind way, not in a crude way, not in a violent way, not in a harsh way like you know, going back, working backwards with our, with our opposites there.
Speaker 1:So yes, like well, I just I think of the verse be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, and this is just. It goes right hand in hand with being gentle, right Tenderhearted. Very much of our hearts are not tender towards those who have wronged us, towards those, even our children, who have disobeyed us, who have, you know, broken the rules or lied to us or whatever. Like tenderness does not come naturally in those scenarios. So, outside of the Holy Spirit giving you that tenderness, you know you're going to struggle and it is a struggle.
Speaker 2:That verse was actually what we were memorizing in my class this week and I find I usually we usually define at least one word in the verse that we're learning, and tenderhearted was the one that we were defining. The verse that we're learning and tenderhearted was the one that we were defining and the definition that I found that was most understandable to elementary school kids was gentle actually. So it's, and that's hard. Even that is kind of hard to it. Practically speaking, a lot of it is just kindness. It's choosing, kindness and choosing. I love this verse, psalms 1835. Jesus is just so kind to us and so gentle with us and he could, because he is holy and because he is just and because he is sinless and like. There's so many things about God that he really could be a harsh God, he could be a, and he is a terrible God. He is a, he is the righteous judge, you know.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But he also shows such kindness and such mercy to us, right, and that's like the definition of meekness, like he has all the strength and power and that he chooses to show us such kindness. But psalms 1835 thou has also given me the shield of thy salvation, and thy right hand hath holding me up and thy gentleness hath made me great, and of all the things that, I assume it was david that that said this. Most of the psalms were david, so I assume it was david. Like he, he could see of all the attributes of god that he could have. He could have said that your power made me great or your, your righteousness made me great, or you know.
Speaker 2:There's so many things he could have said, but he said that your gentleness has made me great and god showed so much gentleness to david oh yeah, definitely definitely and that's what and I can say in my life, like I can look back and say that, like the goodness of God is what has, I won't say, made me great but has made me. Anything good that I have, I think, goes back to witnessing and and seeing the goodness of God given to me right and that is really.
Speaker 1:Gentleness has to come from a place of humility. If you're from, if you're standing at somebody with a air of pride and arrogancy, you will not be gentle because you're looking at them and saying, well, I am better than you, so you need to be like me, or you need to be better than what you are for me to accept you and for me to show you any type of favor. And obviously, when we come from a place of humility, recognizing I have nothing, I deserve nothing, god has granted me all of these wonderful blessings without my deserving me, all of these wonderful blessings without my deserving. I can therefore extend grace and compassion and forgiveness and mercy upon all of those others, because God has done it toward me.
Speaker 2:Even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven me.
Speaker 1:Exactly so, really, I think the issue that probably goes deeper it would be that of pride and just simply forgetting who we really are.
Speaker 2:Let me read this quote that was kind of towards the end of the devotion. It says it is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect like Christ we are, the gentler and quieter we become towards the defects of others. And I think that kind of just sums up everything that we were really saying, that it kind of sucks the pride out of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you had in there as well the example of Christ forgiving the woman who was taken in adultery in the study and all of those people who brought that woman they brought her out of pride right, it was a two-fold thing. They were getting justice or whatever for this person who had messed up against their the law right, coming at it from a place of you know, we are holy and you deserve judgment, but then also also trying to get Jesus to mess up right, be entrapped right In their ideas and what they think he should have done. Obviously, we know the end of the story whatever Jesus was writing on the ground caused them to have no more pride in their in no more wind in their sails, so to speak. They were humbled by whatever it was that Jesus was writing. And Jesus said you know, I don't accuse you either and we see that often Just attitude of grace and mercy and gentleness towards others that Christ, who could, who was perfect and he had every right, could have judged her harshly, sure, by the law, obviously. But he didn't.
Speaker 2:And I just think there's really no time that you look at at Christ dealing with people just as actual, like physical, face-to-face with people example that we can look at at christ dealing with people just his actual, like physical, face-to-face with people example that we can look at. They're really. The only time he was really harsh was when he was dealing with the, the, the spiritual leaders who were, you know hypocrites?
Speaker 1:yeah, and it was because of their pride that they were hypocrites, you know that's like the one time where christ was harsh and honestly had he.
Speaker 2:He knew their heart, he could see straight through them and I think that if he had seen a repented heart, or if he had seen like they're really trying their best and they're just like confused and failing, like you know there were, there were lots of good jewish leaders who were just nicodemus right yeah, he came to him by night and then jesus sat and talked with him and he was not harsh.
Speaker 2:He was blunt, right, but he was not harsh with nicodemus. And so it's not just being like a spiritual leader, it's the fact that you can see their hearts and the hardness and the pride of their hearts, right and so. But that to me is just all the more convicting because I have been saved long enough to know better you know, right, and so if Christ wanted to be harsh with me, he could be, you know, right. I feel like I'm just so thankful that for his gentleness.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and that's definitely a reminder to us who have any sort of you know, role in spiritual leadership, as far as maybe even a Sunday school class or mentorship or discipleship or anything like that the time, the place where we think that we have it all together and we can cast judgment on other people without remembering who we are and where we've came from, judgment on other people without remembering who we are and where we've came from, like it's a good reminder that we need humility, because we get so complacent in what we know and what we can do in our own strength that we forget how much we actually fail on a daily basis. And we still need the Lord's strength and we still need his help and his guidance and we need to remember that his strength is what will help us, not our strength, yeah, so yeah, it's a great study and definitely convicting. Definitely consider having your family tell you when you are, if you're that brave, when you're being harsh and not gentle in your tone.
Speaker 2:Maybe it'll humble you a little god has shown incredible gentleness with us. We are walking in the spirit. Gentleness is a fruit of that. It's an evidence of god working in us and it will never be perfect, because we are not perfect, but it is something that we should be growing in. And maybe gentleness is your thing and you are the most gentle person and I am so happy for you. But I know for myself I be very, very gentle until I'm not, and then I am irritable and I am. You know. I'm not going to go back over that list of words, but it's an area that when I fail, I don't necessarily repent and turn and ask for goodness and, you know, do all the things that I should do. Instead, I start self-loathing and become very like silly.
Speaker 1:Like wallowing in the guilt that we talked about in our last podcast.
Speaker 2:Yes, I wallow in the guilt of it and I feel terrible and I feel like, oh, I'm never going to get better at this and I'm just a terrible mother or a terrible wife or a terrible friend or whatever, and it's an unhealthy spiral. Instead of just asking forgiveness, whether I was, maybe I was just napping and nobody was even around to hear it. That's still, you know, between me and God, but often there's a person involved that needs to be, you know, addressed. I need to apologize, you need to say this isn't okay. Just because I'm tired, just because mommy doesn't feel good, just because, right, he's trying to park and you're asking me a thousand questions, right doesn't mean that I have a right to be mean or harsh or whatever the word is, and so making excuses is not the answer and following and self-pity is not the the answer.
Speaker 2:Asking forgiveness, whether it's from yourself or from whoever you've offended, is a way that you make room for the holy spirit. It is he has to do and asking.
Speaker 1:Asking for forgiveness is gentleness in its own right too, so it is kind of making making right the wrong in a way. That's a nice way to put it. Thanks for joining us, and we will be back with our next issue of the heart, issue of the heart. Till next time.
