I have been sitting with gentleness longer than I expected to because I realized I was having a hard time separating what the word gentle means in everyday language from what Scripture is actually asking of us. In ordinary conversation, gentleness can sound like softness, quietness, or a naturally calm personality. But biblical gentleness is much deeper than personality. The Greek word prautēs carries the idea of meekness, humility, and strength under control. That changed the way I thought about it, because gentleness is not really a question of whether I am naturally soft-spoken or easygoing. It becomes a question of who has authority over the personality I already have.

I listened to a message that made the point that the Holy Spirit is not impressed with our explanations about personality. We can say, “That’s just how I am,” “I’m direct,” “I tell it like it is,” or “I have a strong personality,” but if I have surrendered my life to Christ, my personality cannot be the final authority over how I speak, respond, correct, disagree, or treat another person. The speaker also said something that stayed with me: check your accent. In other words, check your tone. Sometimes we are so focused on whether what we said was technically true that we never stop to consider what was communicated through the way we said it. You can say the right words with the wrong posture. You can speak truth with a tone that wounds. You can have sincere conviction and still use that conviction to overpower another person. Eventually our tone, defensiveness, impatience, or need to prove our point reveals what is actually governing us.

Gentleness is not my personality. It is a reflection of God’s authority in my life.
It is evidence that I have surrendered more than my beliefs to Him. I have also surrendered my words, reactions, tone, strength, and even my convictions. But being right does not give us permission to overpower someone, and conviction does not excuse a lack of gentleness.

I also keep coming back to this thought: if every time you hear the Holy Spirit speaking, He is talking to you about somebody else and never yourself, you need to check that. Yes, the Holy Spirit can place people on our hearts and lead us to pray, encourage, speak truth, or lovingly correct. But He also searches me, convicts me, corrects me, and produces His fruit in me. If God is constantly showing me what everybody else needs to change while never confronting what is happening inside of me, I should examine what voice I am actually listening to. Part of gentleness is having enough humility to ask, “Lord, before You show me what needs to change in them, is there something You are trying to change in me?”

Have you ever been around someone who seems to have a reason for everything? Every consequence is connected to what somebody else did. Every hurtful action has a justification. But then I had another uncomfortable thought: what will my explanations sound like when I stand before the Lord?

“Lord, I wanted to, but my job…”
“Lord, I tried, but my kids…”
“Lord, I know what Your Word said, but You don’t understand what they did to me…”

Suddenly it becomes easier to recognize how desperately all of us need both truth and mercy. That does not mean truth disappears. It means I should be careful about demanding accountability from someone else in a posture I would never want God to use with me. If I hope to be met with gentleness as God exposes where I have been wrong, then I should extend that same gentleness when I see something wrong in someone else. Gentleness does not mean abandoning truth, becoming passive, avoiding difficult conversations, or weakening our convictions. Scripture does not call us to become people without strength. It calls us to surrender that strength. Gentleness is strength under the control of the Spirit. It reminds me of difficult conversations I have had to deliver and literally wanted to cry while delivering them. The truth was clear and correction was needed, but it still hurt me to be part of correcting another person. The least I could do was approach them with gentleness. Correction governed by the Spirit should never make us feel superior to the person being corrected.

After sitting with this for almost two weeks… yes, TWO 😂… I kept asking myself, How am I gentle? Where does this actually show up in my life? Then God brought something very ordinary to mind. My son Aaden is in Junior High Ministry now, and if I am being transparent, I have been having a hard time with it. I realized I had developed concerns about the ministry leadership without really having much personal interaction with them. In other terms: the vibes were not vibing. And I had questions. Lots of them.

don’t react, respond

Someone suggested that I approach one of the ministry leaders and ask about their intentions for serving in the ministry. I had an opportunity to do it, and I didn’t. Later, at another children’s event, I had another opportunity to interact, ask questions, and test whether some of the things I had been sensing were accurate. Again, I didn’t. At first, I thought I might be avoiding something I needed to address. But while thinking deeply about gentleness, I realized there was something else happening too: I was exercising restraint. I had formed thoughts from observation, not relationship. I may have concerns. I may even have discernment worth paying attention to. But I also have to be humble enough to recognize the difference between what I actually know and what I have assumed from a distance. Gentleness in that moment looked like refusing to force an interaction simply because I wanted answers. I could have asked every question on my mind just to determine whether my “vibes” were right. But what would I have been trying to accomplish? Discernment does not always demand immediate action. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is stay still long enough for God to separate discernment from assumption, conviction from emotion, and His timing from your urgency, the hardest one for me. That was the part I had been missing. Gentleness was not pretending I had no concerns or silencing discernment. It was recognizing that I did not have to act on every thought simply because I had one, or demand answers simply because I wanted clarity.

I could wait. I could pray. I could observe. I could allow relationship to develop naturally. And if there is something the Lord truly wants me to address, I can trust Him to create the space for that conversation and trust the Holy Spirit to govern me when it comes. This is what I had been trying to understand about gentleness all along. It is not the absence of strength, conviction, discernment, or concern. It is having all of those things and still allowing God to decide what you do with them. The more I sit with this, the more I understand that gentleness asks a much deeper question than, “Was I nice?” It asks, who was governing my response? Was it my offense, my emotion, my need for answers, my desire to be right, my personality, or was it the Holy Spirit?

If the Spirit truly has authority in our lives, His presence should become visible not only in what we believe, but in how we carry what we believe. It should show up in how we disagree, correct, respond when offended, and treat people we have not yet taken the time to understand. I started these two weeks wondering whether I could even relate to gentleness. I was looking for softness, but God was showing me surrender.

gentleness is not weakness

It is not passivity. And it is not a personality type. Gentleness is strength, conviction, and discernment willingly submitted to the authority, timing, and direction of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes gentleness speaks. Sometimes gentleness corrects. And sometimes gentleness has every opportunity to speak and recognizes that God has not asked it to yet. Then I landed on Galatians 6:1, and Scripture put words around everything I had been wrestling with:

“If someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves…” — Galatians 6:1

Scripture does not tell us to ignore what is wrong. There are times when truth needs to be spoken and accountability needs to happen. Gentleness does not ask us to look the other way. But God also tells us how restoration should happen: gently. Not triumphantly, harshly, or from a position of superiority. Restoration should carry the heart of someone who wants restoration, not simply to prove another person wrong.

And then Scripture turns the attention back toward the person doing the correcting: watch yourself. Even while I am looking at what needs to be corrected in someone else, God tells me to pay attention to me… my heart, motives, pride, and tone. That is gentleness. It holds truth firmly without holding ourselves above the person receiving it. Galatians 6:1 does not separate truth from gentleness; it commands both. Restore them but restore them gently. Look at what has happened but watch yourself while you do it.

That is the posture I want: strong enough to speak when God says speak, humble enough to remain silent when He has not, willing to correct when restoration requires it, and surrendered enough to let the Holy Spirit govern the timing, tone, motive, and words. Gentleness is how strength behaves when it knows Who is actually in authority.

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From the archives: This reflection was originally written as part of a faith-based community within my workplace. It has been lightly adapted for Everyday Spaces, Sacred Graces while preserving the heart and message of the original.