Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Colossians 3:12
My granddaughters show animals and there is a big show coming up this weekend. The middle one hasn’t shown calves for several years, choosing instead to focus on her pigs. This year she thought she might give it a try again. Shortly after she began working with her calf, she was head-butted and stepped on. She had forgotten one of the most important tenants when working with cattle – walk gently.
Cattle aren’t the only things that are spooked when you don’t walk gently. People are too. Sometimes we are walking around, stomping our feet, complaining about how unfair it all is. I’ve done that myself in my life and have damaged some important relationships. With God’s help, I am rebuilding those relationships. But how much better it would have been had I walked gently to begin with.
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Ephesians 4:2
If you examine your current relationships and your past interactions, what do you see? Do you see instances where you might not have walked gently? Maybe times when things in your life weren’t going the way you had hoped and you might have “stepped on” someone, without realizing it?
We all have those moments or interactions we wish we could take back or do over. It’s never too late to make things right, even when it may not seem that way. It might not fix things right away, but if you continue to walk gently, relationships can be healed.
Sometimes we don’t walk gently when we choose not to have relationships or communication with people who are not like us. Every time you make this choice, you are choosing to lose a blessing. Everybody matters to God and everybody should matter to you.
Make a conscious effort to walk gently, especially with people you care about. Go out of your way to be kind with your words, gentle with your actions, generous with your time. Be like Jesus and walk gently.
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Philippians 4:4-5
God bless,
