The Fruit Of...Gentleness

Confession time. I'm not feeling very gentle over the past couple of days. I find myself getting frustrated easily and, while by no means extreme, more quick to anger than I would like. I could almost feel hypocritical about writing these posts except that it is therapeutic for me and my hope is that, by you seeing my honesty and my faults, you will relate to my predicament and not think ill of me for it.

At it's core, my heart is a gentle one. My wife will tell you I'm a romantic. My kids will tell you that I'd rather be cutting up and acting like a teenager any day than I would acting like an adult. But I've spent years letting things get to me and I think what happens is we start to let the layers of crap build up around the gentle core until we aren't smiling much anymore. The world can look like a downright gloomy place if you never see it's beauty and feel it's gentleness. It can be hard to remember that this is all God's creation!

I've learned that it is much harder to peel the layers of crap away than it is to allow them to form in the first place. For every few steps I take forward in the process I seem to stumble and fall back again. How I feel is perfectly described in Romans 7:15...I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

To be stuck in that rut is to go against the beings we're called to be. I can only take heart in the fact that I know what I'm doing, I don't like it, and I'm working on it...with a lot of prayer and the help of the Holy Spirit I know I'll get there eventually.

I'll leave you with a passage that I think accurately describes the mindset of one who has the gentleness of the Holy Spirit with them at their core; who has managed to remove most of the build-up from around it.

Run away from infantile indulgence. Run after mature righteousness—faith, love, peace—joining those who are in honest and serious prayer before God. Refuse to get involved in inane discussions; they always end up in fights. God's servant must not be argumentative, but a gentle listener and a teacher who keeps cool, working firmly but patiently with those who refuse to obey. You never know how or when God might sober them up with a change of heart and a turning to the truth, enabling them to escape the Devil's trap, where they are caught and held captive, forced to run his errands. -- 2 Timothy 2:22-26 (from The Message)