Gentleness

• The life of King David was anything but gentle. The unlikely anointed one, King of Israel, and forefather of Jesus led a life dominated by war, strife, animosity, and death. Despite his status as God’s chosen king, God did not deal gently with David. Or so it seemed.

• In 2 Samuel 22, after brutal battle upon brutal battle, David writes a Psalm giving glory to God for delivering him once again from his enemies. He uses the language of war as he speaks of God’s power, strength, might, holiness, and glory.

• David surprisingly speaks of God’s gentleness as a thing that made him great. The gentleness of God was shown to David in the midst of his greatest failure. When David took Bathsheba, another man’s wife, committing abuse, adultery, dishonesty, and murder, he deserved the wrath and judgement of God.

• What God showed David was his loving, merciful, gentle grace.In exposing his sin and making him live out the consequences of it, God led David to repentance. He drove David to himself. He saved David, and while it was difficult, it was gentle.

• God calls us to display this kind of gentleness in our own lives, especially as we encounter people who do not know the love of God. Jesus showed such gentleness toward the woman at the well in John 4. Jesus spoke hard truth to her, but he was gentle, and it changed her life.

• God is gentle to us when he saves us, and he calls us to do unto others with this same spirit of gentleness. If left to our own devices, we confront sin with wrath which only God can rightly wield. When we abide in Jesus, we show others the gentleness that we ourselves have been shown by our loving Father.