Running the Race

Philippians 4:5 says “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.”  I read that the other day and I was taken aback.  Paul isn’t giving this charge to the Church just because he feels that if people were gentle then we’d all be happier.  Absolutely not!  He says ‘The Lord is near.’ This is a warning!  Gentleness is so absolutely important to God because it’s the way He wants His Truth to be shared.  Gentleness represents a part of who God is and the Church is made up of people who are chosen to represent God to the best of their abilities. (Galatians 5:22-23) Just as employees represent their boss and company, we are called to represent God and His Kingdom! If we aren’t doing the best that we can to glorify His name in everything that we do, are we doing our job? In the coming weeks, I’ll be blogging about different ways in which we, the Church, can effectively represent God, mostly through personal revelation, and hopefully these things will challenge you also in your personal pursuit of holiness.

So back to talking about gentleness, I know and will be the first one to admit that I am a sarcastic, loud and outspoken Italian woman who sometimes doesn’t know when to shut up.  (Yes, I’m flawed. Sue me.)  So I’ve been thinking of some actions I can take, along with prayer, to pursue gentleness more fully and would appreciate your prayers as I seek these out.

1) LISTEN!!

Anyone can sit across from someone and hear them chattering and then interrupt with their two cents about how to fix the problem or even with an entirely new topic and completely disregarding what the other person was saying.  I’m so guilty of that more times than not.  I am praying that when I am conversing with someone, I will be intent and proactive about giving them the attention that they deserve.  Even more importantly, we NEED to be actively listening to God before we can ever learn how to listen to others more effectively!  I believe that God wants us to be listening to Him so intently that all He needs to do is gently whisper and we’ll hear Him as we hear thunder (Job 37:5) and we can set that example by listening to our brothers and sisters as we are to listen to God.

2) EMPATHIZE!!

Empathy is not the same as sympathy.  Sympathy is to feel for someone as an outsider looking in; Empathy is to feel with someone as if you were in their shoes.  I know that I can be gentler with people if I took the time to put myself in their position and understand their viewpoint from where they are coming from as opposed to understanding it from where I am.  I’m not saying that a person’s circumstances are an excuse to act in a way that would be displeasing to God, you don’t have to agree with the person’s actions but, we CAN understand why they are acting in a certain way.  Here’s an image: My dear friend Casey (I have her permission to tell this story) was in South Africa this summer on an awesome 3 month long mission trip. She and her team went out one day and one of her roommates left a window opened in their cabin.  They come back to find monkeys had gotten in and pretty much ransacked Casey’s belongings.  Her reaction: She was furious, yelled at her roommate and screamed all throughout the cabin for a good hour.  Now, her teammates had a few options on handling this situation.  1) Tell Casey that she’s being overly sensitive or overreacting or 2) understand why Casey got angry, justify her feelings and then help her to see that her actions are not the most righteous.  The first option is to confront Casey in a way that discredits where she is coming from and comes off as harsh and dismissive.  The second option demonstrates empathy, which in turn offers encouragement and confrontation with gentleness.  (Proverbs 11:12; Proverbs 16:22) God is ALWAYS going to understand from our level and that is how we should aspire to treat others as well.  By practicing empathy, gentleness is a result.

3) RESPOND!!

When someone says something or does something towards us and we feel the need to passionately disagree or retaliate, acting on those feelings is reacting to the situation.  Taking time to think about and understand all aspects of that something before acting is responding. Example: Someone could come up to you and punch you in the face.  What is your first instinct?  Well, mine is to punch them back, harder.  That would be reacting.  Responding would be to take a minute, remember what God asks of you and use that as your motivation to take the next step. (Matthew 5:38-40) In summary, reacting is action based on feelings and responding is action based on understanding.  Being more responsive causes me to be gentler in my actions and I pray that I would be reminded of that during the struggles of everyday life.  The way you listen affects the way you respond and responding gently as opposed to harsh or not responding at all is an example of how God responds to us. If God were to react based on feelings, the world would have blown up a long time ago.

So, again, LISTEN to what the person is saying, take the time you need to understand and EMPATHIZE with them and then RESPOND with gentleness. In Luke 2:45-47, Jesus sets this perfect example. Let’s show people how God wants His conversations with us to be!!