Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Phil. 4:5
Dear Lord Jesus, there’s no one more gentle with us than you are. Your gentleness is evident to anyone who gets even remotely close to you. There’s no one as welcoming of sinners, as kind to the broken, or as understanding of strugglers than you. You’re gentle yet persistent; gentle but firm; gentle and so very powerful. We praise you today for the endless supply of your compassion and kindheartedness.
You never get nervous, flustered, agitated, or hurried. You’re the perfect surgeon—the one I want working on me, the one I must have at work in me if I’m to become a truly gentle man. You have a steady hand because of your steady heart. By the power of the gospel and the riches of grace, gentle me, Lord. Make me someone whose gentleness is evident to all, not just evident to the people who 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 obvious to me ought to be obvious to everyone else. Gentle me when loud, boorish people invade “my” space—as though I have some inalienable right to an uninterrupted 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 brownie I was planning to enjoy with a glass of milk. Gentle me when I want to curse the humidity for shortening my run.
Gentle me when a vacation gets cut short by crises. Gentle me when friends keep making the same 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 really did, but things for which you paid my debt.
Gentle me when I start debating theology with more forte than loving people who see things differently. Gentle me when I cannot fix the very people you never gave me to fix. Gentle me when telemarketers find a way to call my no call line. Have mercy on me, the irritable sinner.
Jesus, you are so near to us in the gospel; in fact, you live in our hearts and tabernacle in our midst. You’re also near in terms of returning to the earth to finish making all things new. May your double nearness generate quicker repentances and much more evident gentleness in our lives. So very Amen we pray, in your kind and loving name. Amen.
