Living as God's GirlSample

Gentleness

Let’s play a game. I’ll say a word, and you think of the opposite. Okay?

Run

Fun

Asleep

I’m sure it wasn’t hard for you to come up with opposites for those words.

But why did I ask you to do this? Because one way to understand what a word means is to consider what it does not mean.

I think “gentle” is one of those words.

Before we try to define “gentle,” let’s look at two of its opposites: “harsh” and “severe.” Hold that thought!

Now, we may think that being gentle means not having any strength or being weak, but that is not what “gentle” means at all. “Gentle” means that we do not use all the strength that we have because we are being considerate of someone or something else. 

For example, we are gentle with babies because we don’t want to hurt them or frighten them. We are bigger and stronger; they are delicate and fragile. So we touch babies carefully and use a calm, soft voice when we talk to them. 

Have you ever watched a daddy holding his tiny baby? Even though he is big and strong, he chooses not to use all his strength when he holds the child. When he hugs his baby, he is careful not to squeeze too tightly. The baby’s experience is more important to Daddy than his own.

To be gentle, we have to understand someone else’s needs. That requires thoughtfulness and consideration, which call for a different kind of strength than big muscles or a loud voice. Being gentle requires power that neither you nor I can adequately have on our own. To be sufficiently and appropriately gentle, we need to rely on God’s Spirit to grow His fruit inside us.

You see, when we choose to let God’s gentle Spirit live inside us and work through us, people around us can see His presence in us, and those observers often want to know more about the gentle God we love. These observers will also appreciate you, knowing from your gentleness that you are thinking about them and their needs.

Let’s get one thing straight—Jesus is not weak. Not at all!

Some people were cruel to Him. They called Him names, treated Him terribly, and plotted against Him as if He were a criminal. And Jesus was absolutely strong enough to stop the abuse if He had wanted to. (Of course, Jesus didn’t like the cruelty, but He was choosing to do what God wanted Him to do. This was part of God’s ultimately good plan for Jesus—and for you and me.) Jesus didn’t have to show these cruel people love, and He doesn’t have to show you and me love either. And yet He did and He does!

Jesus’s gentle spirit also allowed Him to put up with all the cruel things that others did and said to Him. And because of His love for them, He chose to endure the difficult moments so He could follow through on God’s plan to save mankind from their sin. If He had not chosen gentleness but had opted to be harsh or severe, He might have allowed us to suffer the consequences we deserve for our sin. In fact, our holy God would have been forced to punish us for our bad decisions.

We see Jesus’s gentleness in His willingness to die for us. The cross is an important reminder that God chose to be gentle with us… and that choice meant watching His Son die on the cross. 

Jesus chose to be humble and gentle. He never fought back when people were cruel to Him. He cared about us enough to die for us.

So, how can you be gentle today? Who can you show that you care about them and their welfare? Decide now when and where you will demonstrate Christlike gentleness today—and remember that God will help you.

Self-Control

When you hear the word “self-control,” what comes to mind? What pictures or thoughts pop into your head?

When I hear the word “self-control,” I immediately think of discipline and hard work and rules. For most of my life, especially as a little girl, I thought more about the things I shouldn’t do than the things I could do and should do.

For example, in the home where I grew up, listening to music that wasn’t specifically Christian music was a no-no.

I also knew where I couldn’t go in the big city where we lived. I was not allowed to go past one particular crack in the sidewalk to the right of our porch, and I couldn’t cross the street in the other direction.

I knew I wasn’t supposed to use bad words, hang out with the wrong people, or talk back to my mother.

I guess you could say I was trained that way. So knowing what I shouldn’t do seemed very natural to me. Just like breathing. 

But to be honest with you, I was annoyed by these rules even when I was a little girl. I had lots of friends who were allowed to listen to other kinds of music. Why couldn’t I?

And I had lots of friends who could wander the city. Why did my mom have to be so strict?

When I was young, the ways I was different from my friends made me think a lot of negative thoughts that probably weren’t healthy for me. I believed that most of these rules were unfair and that they seemed to follow me wherever I went.

But now I know that these rules weren’t necessarily bad. Most of them were good, and I give my daughters similar rules today.

I didn’t know at the time that my mother was trying to keep me safe and teach me self-control. 

My mother knew what it was like to say yes to God in every part of her life, and she was doing her best to teach me to do the same. Some of the rules she established were small ways to help me understand the difference between saying yes to God and saying yes to what everyone else thought I should do. 

Some of the reasons God gives us rules are the same reasons my mother gave me rules. God wants us safe, He wants us to be wise, and He wants to train us to say yes to Him. He knows that being under control is a good thing. In fact, it’s a God thing.

God doesn’t want you to live your life saying no to things. Nope. Remember the title of this book? He wants you to be a girl who knows how to say yes to Him and to the adventure He has invited you to enjoy.

You see, in Jesus and through the Holy Spirit, God has given us the freedom and the power to say yes to Him and to His plan for us. At times that requires saying no to other things so we can choose God’s way.

And that is what self-control is. It is saying yes to God and His way and saying no to anything that takes us in the wrong direction.

Does saying yes to God—and no to the other option—sometimes seem impossible? Absolutely! Saying yes to God is hard for all of us. In fact, sometimes it’s impossible! Even Jesus bumped up against the seemingly impossible. He wrestled in prayer before His death; He struggled and asked to avoid the path to the cross God had for Him.

But guess what? Jesus surrendered His will and said yes to God. He is our perfect example of self-control even when His yes to God meant His death.

This Devotional was inspired by Wynter Pitt's book "Living as God's Girl". To learn more about this book and many more from Wynter Pitt's, visit http://forgirlslikeyou.com.