Funny how a word like gentleness can step all over the ways you’ve tried to do things for God, tried to do them your way. By yourself.

It’s more comfortable to tackle the things you can master or offer on your own. Let pride mask as excellence and work ethic. Serve God with your best but forget to get out of the way. Truth is I need the things I can’t do—the things that take a God-sized miracle—to remind me it’s neither up to me or about me at all.

A gentle spirit runs counter to what culture celebrates: independence and rightness. Self-made success. Goal setting and exponential growing. We buy into the lie that we don’t need God. But gentleness is an invitation to humility—and mind-flexibility as I like to remind my girl with a bendy back and a double dose of my stubbornness. It encourages us to move aside and let God be big. Maybe that’s precisely why Jesus blessed gentleness in the Sermon on the Mount.

 

Links mentioned:

1. Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Download a free sample from the resource library, and if you want the rest it’s $4.99 on Kindle or $6.99 for the paperback. Grab the bonus 30-day missional living challenge (free with a purchase) to get the most out of the devotional.
2. View the written version of this episode.