Question of the Day

What is gentleness?

Phil 4:4Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I picked up "The Mind of Christ" by TW Hunt. He said the oposite of gentleness is hardness and the perversion of gentleness is being too soft.

Jesus was gentle. Always. But the whips in the temple and the "Get behind me, Satan" do not seem gentle. So it must be a state of heart. I need it. I also need the peace which transcends all understanding. I am so thankful that all we need comes directly through Him. If all we have is Jesus, we can be complete.

I love His people though, I don't want to ever be without them. Thankfully, He feels the same way. :)

Tradin it In!

I went to a women's seminar this weekend and I want to share my favorite part. One of the teachers explained the greek definition of "quiet and gentle" from the passage about women in one of Peter's letters. Quiet meant, "calm" or "tranquil" and gentle meant, "anger far from me".

This is very exciting to me because it fits so well with what God has been speaking to me about rejoicing. I saw a chart some time ago and it showed underlying emotions for different personalities. If I remember right, they were; fear, peace, optimism and I know mine was anger. I totally identified with that. Anger has been my fuel since I was ten. Not an out-of-control anger, but an underlying anger that moved me to go in certain directions.

So now I can see that God is asking me to trade all that anger in for rejoicing! To have rejoicing be my fuel instead of anger. What a wonderful trade! Of course this is a process, so I may still rant and rave and fuss and fume occasionally, but hopefully, there will be a whole lot more rejoicing and trusting my wonderful God to make things right.

Called to Love

We were talking Saturday in my prayer group about our callings. We all prayed about it together and now I am feeling "smote to the heart". God has been reminding me today that as a Christian, my greatest calling is to love. God and every person He puts in my life. I don't know if I have much business worrying about any other calling right now. Especially if it makes me forget about this first calling. And I can't do anything right or well for God if I haven't learned to love, at least a little, first. So, I guess until I have learned to love until it hurts and rejoice in Him while I am doing it, I needn't be so worried about any other role I will play in God's kingdom. Does anyone else have a hard time remembering it's all about love, or is it just me?

Do I Really Want "More of Him, Less of Me"?

I had a revelation this morning. If I really trust God's timing, I shouldn't be impatient.


Then I had another revelation. I kind of like being impatient.


It is part of my personality and I think it helps me "get things done". Does it really? I doubt it.


Is there any part of your personality that you know is wrong, but you don't want to give up?