There is more about a gentle spirit on the Having a Gentle Spirit page, but there is a fairly simple question on gentleness that we should consider.
In your conversations, how do you behave yourself? Are you one who is constantly looking to put in "your two cents?" Do people worry about sharing their thoughts or ideas with you? Are there secrets your husband will not tell you because he fears your response?
Women have many tones to their voices. Some women have been raised in such a way that their tone of voice is harsh and makes them sound angry even when, if you take their word for it, they are not angry. They can drive children to tears and husbands to despair, yet claim "well, I wasn't mad," so that no one really knows. There is a special kind of a woman's voice. Every man knows immediately what that sentence means. There is a voice of nagging, of anger, of negativity that is shocking in its effect.
Gentleness is about a lot of things, but the most obvious fact is how you speak. At dinner with couples, I am sometimes amazed at how negatively the wife speaks to the husband. How quickly she "snaps" at him or orders him about, in a way she would never do with someone to whom she was not married. This is not gentleness, under any definition.
The gentle person knows that God is sovereign over all things. They know that "their opinion" is not needed on every issue. They are not worried about everything nor afraid of the future. Like the excellent wife, they "laugh at the times to come." Prov. 31:25. Gentleness is not something we "put on" as a cloak, but something that develops within us, through the working of the Holy Spirit.
Gentleness is the proof of wisdom, as James tells us. A lack of gentleness, likewise, is proof that we have not yet come as far as we ought to come.
Are you a gentle spirit in your home? Does your gentleness make your home a place of peace? Or are you a source of the tension in your home? A gentle and quiet spirit is precious not on in God's sight, but in the sight of men as well.
In your conversations, how do you behave yourself? Are you one who is constantly looking to put in "your two cents?" Do people worry about sharing their thoughts or ideas with you? Are there secrets your husband will not tell you because he fears your response?
Women have many tones to their voices. Some women have been raised in such a way that their tone of voice is harsh and makes them sound angry even when, if you take their word for it, they are not angry. They can drive children to tears and husbands to despair, yet claim "well, I wasn't mad," so that no one really knows. There is a special kind of a woman's voice. Every man knows immediately what that sentence means. There is a voice of nagging, of anger, of negativity that is shocking in its effect.
Gentleness is about a lot of things, but the most obvious fact is how you speak. At dinner with couples, I am sometimes amazed at how negatively the wife speaks to the husband. How quickly she "snaps" at him or orders him about, in a way she would never do with someone to whom she was not married. This is not gentleness, under any definition.
The gentle person knows that God is sovereign over all things. They know that "their opinion" is not needed on every issue. They are not worried about everything nor afraid of the future. Like the excellent wife, they "laugh at the times to come." Prov. 31:25. Gentleness is not something we "put on" as a cloak, but something that develops within us, through the working of the Holy Spirit.
Gentleness is the proof of wisdom, as James tells us. A lack of gentleness, likewise, is proof that we have not yet come as far as we ought to come.
Are you a gentle spirit in your home? Does your gentleness make your home a place of peace? Or are you a source of the tension in your home? A gentle and quiet spirit is precious not on in God's sight, but in the sight of men as well.
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