There is giant gentleness all around you. The giant gentleness is the presence of God. Whether we acknowledge it or are aware of His presence, He is in our midst. And He is aware of our needs, but are we aware of Him?
One of my favorite characteristics of God is His gentleness. Through His gentleness we experience both His power and His love. Through His gentleness we are comforted, our tears are wiped away, He unites us in relationships that encourage us and promote peace in our lives.
God’s love is manifested through gentleness. His gentleness is giant because it is big enough for all our burdens, all our mistakes and missteps, all our pain, all our tears and hurts. God’s gentleness expands to cover our every need. When we receive His love we receive His gentleness.
1 Kings 19:12 says, “And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.”
How do you expect to see power and might? Do you expect to see power in a whisper?
When I think of power I think of force, and pressure. Yet God, the one who holds all power and authority exercises his power through gentleness with us. He made his presence known to Elijah not through the trembling and shaking of an earthquake or the heat of a fire, but through the gentleness of a soft, delicate breeze and quiet whisper.
A whisper is easy to miss. It’s easy to overlook. It’s easy to discount or cast aside. But just because it’s easy to miss or overlook doesn’t subtract from it’s power and presence. I believe God comes to us as a quiet whisper because He knows that we need to clear away, cast aside the other, louder, seemingly powerful things that can influence us.
We are called to a higher place, to an alternative way of living and relating with others. We are told in Ephesians 4 that we are to be humble and gentle. And that the product of our gentle humility is unity.
Ephesians 4:2-4 says, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called;
The Spirit alive and well in us will help us to live in unity. Unity can’t be achieved without gentleness. God in His infinite wisdom, gives us instructions for how we can live gently with others through the Spirit at work in us.
It is God’s gentleness with us that leads us into unity with Him. He does not carry and wait around with a gavel in his hand waiting to convict us of the wrongs we’ve done. On the contrary we are told in scripture that God waits for us to come to Him so he can love on us, he wants to show us His mercy. If that doesn’t shout gentleness I don’t know what does.
Isaiah 30:18-19 says, “Yet the Lord still waits for you to come to him so he can show you his love; he will conquer you to bless you, just as he said. For the Lord is faithful to his promises. Blessed are all those who wait for him to help them. O my people in Jerusalem, you shall weep no more, for he will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. He will answer you.”
You may be in a season of your life, like me, where you read this verse and your mind can’t fathom “no more weeping”. The very thought that there will be a time and place where there is no heartache seems unattainable and like a figment of imagination – only to be watched in movies or read about in fantasies.
But this place, this time, of no more weeping will come, and is available for all who say yes to Jesus. It’s available to all who say yes to the one and the only Lord God, King of Kings and Prince of Peace.
The Lord shows us His gentleness through His love for us. He created a place and a time – all of eternity – that we will get to live with Him. Bodies made new, hearts refreshed, minds renewed, the hurts we experienced and the suffering we are walking through now will be as nothing when compared to the glory, majesty, complete Shalom we will experience in the days ahead.
Father God, I come before you as I sit and write these words and ask for you to encourage our hearts today. Encourage and uplift the hearts of my brothers and sisters in faith to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there are better days ahead. Help us to know from the core of our being that you are with us on the hardest days and on the best days. You never leave us and you never walk away from us.
God, help us to trust you in the messy middle, the places that are uncomfortable, that stretch us beyond and expose our need for you. Help us to let go of control and exchange our desire for control for what you want and need us to learn.
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