Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Philippians 4:5
Dear Lord Jesus, there’s no one more gentle with me than you. There’s no one as welcoming of sinners… kind to the broken… or understanding of the struggling as you. Gentle, yet persistent… gentle, yet firm … gentle, yet so very powerful.
You’re like the perfect surgeon—the one I want working on me. You never get nervous, flustered, agitated, or quick. You have a steady hand because of your steady heart. O, how I need you to do ongoing gospel surgery on me if I’ve going to be a true gentle-man—someone whose gentleness is evident to all, and not just evident to the people that are easy for me to be with.
Gentle me when I’m behind slow drivers who stay in the fast lane. Gentle me when I face both fair and unfair criticism. Gentle me when I think things that are obvious to me ought to be just as obvious to everybody else. Gentle me when loud boorish people invade “my space”—as though I have some inalienable right to a non-interrupted life.
Gentle me when I’m too tired to engage, but my wife really needs me to listen. Gentle me when I need a nap but my grandson needs to play. Gentle me when someone gets the last cookie I was planning on throwing down with a cold glass of milk. Gentle me when I want to make things right, but can’t.
Gentle me when the vacation gets cut short by crises. Gentle me when friends keep making the same mistakes and foolish choices. Gentle me when the restaurant sends me home with the wrong takeout order. Gentle me when Satan starts condemning me for things I actually did, but things for which you already paid my debt.
Gentle me when I start debating theology rather than loving the people who see things differently. Gentle me when it gets too cold and rainy to run, disrupting my plans. Gentle me when I cannot fix the very people you never gave me to fix. Gentle me when staying angry would feel a lot more like power and control.
Jesus, you are so near to us in the gospel, in fact, you live in our hearts. You’re also “near” in terms of coming back to finish making all things new. May your nearness generate a much quicker repentance on my part. Make me a gentle-man by the gospel and for your glory. So very Amen, I pray, in your kind and loving name.