This is the ninth post in the Others-oriented fruit of the Spirit series. The topic is gentleness. Get future posts delivered to you for free by grabbing the RSS feed or email updates.
There’s always that guy – that girl – who doesn’t get it. They completely blow off the feelings of others. Sometimes, their motives are right, but they don’t pay attention. Other times, they just don’t care. Either way, the result is the same: scars for the rest of us.
How can we help them be more gentle? How can we help them grow more sensitive to others? How can you and I help them care about the feelings of others?
I think the way to cultivate gentleness in others is to give them practice. Specifically, let them practice on you and I.
That sounds selfish at first – like, “Yeah, practice being gentle and caring to me” – but it’s not like that. It’s more like, “Yeah, I’m going to make myself vulnerable to you while you practice gentleness on me.” But oh wait – they don’t know they’re supposed to practice gentleness yet.
Suddenly this doesn’t sound so cushy.
Becoming the sacrificial experiment
I remember a particular Biology class I took (don’t we all have these stories?). In this one, we sacrificed innocent animals so we could study them. I’ll spare you the details. The idea is to experiment on a select few (or sometimes, many) in exchange for the information we gather.
Scientists do this all the time. We purposely give guinea pigs cancer to learn how to treat it – and hopefully save people’s lives.
That’s how I’m saying you and I need to get involved.
- Instead of letting Barbara try to practice gentleness for the first time on the little ol’, unsaved lady who just lost her husband of 57 years, let her practice on you.
- Instead of letting Tom try to practice gentleness for the first time on his wife who’s been cheating on him for the past five years with his “best friend,” let him practice on you.
What if you shared some of your deepest pains, and let Babara hack at helping you through it? What if you shared some of your darkest sins, and let Tom stumble through being gentle to you?
This stuff isn’t easy. You expose yourself in a serious way. You have to trust God to take care of you even if you’re treated harshly, which will happen. I think it is crucial, though, for cultivating gentleness in others.
They don’t know how to be gentle because they’ve never been trusted to deal with sin and pain authentically.
Within Christianity, we’re guarded. We know how to conceal our lives. No wonder those outside the church are scared to come to us. They don’t trust our gentleness. And how can they when we don’t within the church? If you’re not willing to trust someone’s gentleness, how will anyone else?
Yes, sharing yourself authentically will get you beat up, at least emotionally. Yes, your friends won’t know what to do. Yes, they’ll be harsh at first.
But isn’t it better that they practice on you – so next time, they’ll know what to do for someone else? It might not seem better, but overall who does God want you to care about, you or them?
We don’t share with the harshest people because we know we’ll get our heads bitten off. But failing to share only continues the cycle, cutting them off from opportunities to learn gentleness. Someone needs to be the guinea pig.
Serving Suggestions:
(1) What’s one secret you don’t usually share with others, perhaps because it’s too painful?
(2) Share it with someone. Go slowly. Start with someone who’s likely to offer least some gentleness, then work your way to the harshest of the pack.
(3) Pray. A lot. And get encouragement and support from other Christians around you. You’ll need a thick skin and spiritual protection as you share.
Twitter Updates
“There’s always that guy – that girl – who doesn’t get it. They completely blow off the feelings of others. Sometimes, their motives are right, but they don’t pay attention. Other times, they just don’t care. Either way, the result is the same: scars for the rest of us.”
You just nailed me right there, sometimes anyway, probably more than I’ll admit it.
After beginning to write this, ton of ideas hit me about gentleness and how we can be more gentle. Definitely some posts in the works about it. I’m part of that first group too.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
Great man , God Bless
Thanks, you too.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
I definitely like the thought in this, but if the person doesn’t know what’s happening I don’t see how anything would change. They would respond to you like they normally do (harshly) and then go on none the wiser. The only way I can see this making a difference is if they understand that they need to learn gentleness and compassion (however that comes about). Otherwise, you open yourself up to blasting and worse because this isn’t a safe person, and more than likely the widow and wife will still get blasted when they run across them too. If they are trying to become a safe person, that’s different.
The idea of sacrificing your interests in this endeavor is an excellent one, but I feel like there may need to be a little caution exercised or precursor work done. Does that make sense?
Great thought-provoking post. Thanks.
Yes, I totally see what you’re saying, Jason. Now that you mention it, I realize I did leave out a big part of this.
The idea is that once you and I open up to others, they’ll begin to let their guard down. They’ll naturally start to mirror what we do… usually.
But as you said, if they really don’t know (and often I’m in that category… totally oblivious), then all the openness isn’t going to change their response.
In that case, it does take an extra part. You mentioned a precursor. I’m not really a fan of that idea because it tends to push people away. Even if it’s not meant this way, the person feels like they’re unaccepted, which is probably part of the reason they’re not sensitive in the first place.
I suggest more of a post-cursor. :>) I didn’t convey this well in the post at all, so I apologize for that. Thank you for pointing it out.
A post-cursor comes afterward. Once you’ve opened up, once the person sees that you’re willing to talk to him or her, you’ll start to build trust. With that trust, you’ll be able to start making gentle suggestions (if they don’t already start mirroring you).
I tend to approach evangelism the same way. You can make it known up front that you’re a Christian, but it’s not until you’ve built trust that anyone will pay attention.
It’s tricky, though, as you pointed out. Sometimes, no matter what we do, nothing seems to make any difference. At that point, I don’t know that opening up is still the answer. But then again, success for us isn’t measured in the results – it’s measured in our obedience to what God tells us to do.
Thank you again for calling me out here. I appreciate it, really. I’m more committed to helping out than being right (at least I try to be). So all the input is fantastic.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
And who knows, letting yourself be the “guinea pig” just might result in a spirit of gentle grace falling on you. I think we focus so much on “how to give” we forget “how to receive.” Good post, Marshall.
Thank you for sharing.
God blesses those who try… and I don’t mean that flippantly. I really believe that God focuses on our motivation, so absolutely… I think He wants to bless us for giving ourselves away.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
Being authentic is so important. What exactly is the point if we’re not genuine?
I read through your post, and then the convo between you and Jason… there is lots to take in here… thank you, Marshall.
Yes, and isn’t that what authenticity and genuineness should be all about, letting our guard down and becoming vulnerable so we can reach others?
Thank you for reading as always.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
Challenging post bro’…This Scripture comes to mind.
“Brothers, if a person is caught doing something wrong, those of you who are spiritual should restore that person in a spirit of gentleness. Watch out for yourself so that you are not tempted as well.” Galatians 6:1
Does this fit in with what you’re sharing?
Peace,
Jay
Right, it all comes back to the motivation, why we’re trying to restore them. Are we trying to restore just to have more gentle people around or do we genuinely care about them? I think when we genuinely care, gentleness tends to flow naturally, instead of a more hard line approach when we’re restoring only out of a sense of duty.
And about that last part of the verse, yep, it’ll be tricky for sure. I love that about the Bible. It doesn’t try to gloss over the difficulty, but it does share our to persist through the difficulty.
Thank you for references that verse. I always love when I see comments with Scripture in them. It’s such a blessing.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
Sometimes, the first person I need to let practice on me is — myself. Sometimes, I need to learn to be gentle with myself before I try to teach others how to be gentle.
Love this post Marshall — very thoughtful.
Thank you very much.
That’s a good perspective too. In fact, I think they often go together, even though they don’t seem like they could. We can help teach others how to be gentle by being gentle ourselves, and at the same time we can become more gentle by teaching others how to do it. We feed off each other and the way the Lord works through each of us.
-Marshall Jones Jr.