But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 

Gentleness is something that a lot of people seem to lack in this day and age, whether interacting with adults or children. We can so often assume someone knows or understands something we are talking about and when they don’t, it is easy to become harsh or angry with them, even for something they have no control over. Or if someone is upset about something we find silly, it can be difficult to respond in gentleness. One verse that immediately comes to mind when I think about gentleness is Proverbs 15:1, which says, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Even though the actual word “gentleness” is not in the verse, the concept of it is. Gentleness, in the context of talking to someone, is a soft answer instead of a harsh word. When we respond with a soft answer, we have a better chance of being heard. 

Imagine you are in a situation where you are starting to get anxious or upset about something that has just happened. We are going to play this out two different ways: 

~ In the first scenario, someone nearby seems a bit impatient with your emotional state and snaps at you, saying, “It’s ok, it’s not a big deal. Get over it.” How does that make you feel? That would make my situation worse. Now, on top of already being anxious or upset, I would probably be angry with that person for completely disregarding my currently fragile emotions and I would feel disregarded and disrespected as a human being.

~ Now for the second scenario, someone nearby comes over and maybe gives you a hug. They ask you what happened and if there is anything they can do to help improve the situation. How does that make you feel? I would feel heard and cared about. Even if there is nothing the other person can do to help or fix anything, having a gentle approach to the situation can make all the difference in diffusing the problem at hand. 

In both of the above scenarios, the other person was trying to get you to no longer feel the emotions you were starting to feel. I am sure all of us would prefer to be talked to like the second scenario describes, so why are we so often quick to respond like the first scenario? The answer to that is because we are sinful human beings. We have the ability to be gentle, but that is not always our natural instinct.  

Speaking of our natural instinct to not be gentle, that makes me think of children. Young children need a lot of teaching in order to know what is right and what is wrong. One big thing we teach our children is to be gentle in their actions: don’t hit, don’t kick, don’t bite, don’t pinch, don’t climb on people, don’t throw random objects at people, and many other things to try to avoid physically hurting themselves and others whenever possible. For those who have or have worked with children, we know that it is a long process to teach children to act gently towards both themselves and others.  

It is a long process for us adults to learn how to speak with gentleness as well, and that is another aspect of gentleness that we begin to teach our children when they are young. As soon as they start talking, children are taught to use kind and gentle words, yet we still struggle to use gentle words when we grow into adults. How often do we give in to our flesh and respond with anger or impatience instead of gentleness? And that is unfortunately the type of response that children copy, no matter how much we try to teach them otherwise.  

Throughout my life, I have seen many examples of how not to speak to others and it is not appealing to listen to. I am sure you can think of at least one time when someone has spoken harshly to you or to someone you love. How did that make you feel? Or maybe you can think of a time when you spoke harshly to someone and you were misunderstood or ignored because of your tone. How did that make you feel? Whether or not the person speaking was saying words that needed to be said, the tone can completely change how the words are taken. It can be so easy in the moment to talk harshly to someone, especially when the other person is getting on your nerves, but a soft answer will be accepted and understood much better in most situations. 

Abbi