Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Fruit of the Spirit :: Gentleness

I grew up on the baseball fields. Not because I was in baseball, or softball, but because my brother was. My brother played baseball from the time I can remember, my dad always coached his teams, and my mom and I were always the best fans. I loved going to the practices and hanging out with the guys.

One skill they always worked on during practice was to have "soft hands". You see, they guys would get in two lines facing one another (much like you would if you were to play Red Rover) and they would toss eggs back and forth to one another. They would have to catch the eggs very gently as to not break it. They were learning how to have these "soft hands" when catching a baseball on the field so as not to drop the ball and to have better control.

I remember a scene in the movie "The Mighty Ducks" in which the kids did the same sort of drill. Instead of throwing and catching eggs, they used their hockey sticks to softly pass the eggs and catch them with their sticks.

When I think of gentleness, this is what first comes to my mind -- tossing and catching eggs. We are to be gentle with our words and our deeds. We are to treat one another like eggs. We are to have soft hands. We aren't to be harsh, we aren't to throw these "eggs" hard. We are to be welcoming with love to one another as we catch one another with soft hands.

How are you when you deal with others? Do you throw or catch one another hard where each others shell breaks, or do you use loving, soft hands?

Be sure to check out Carrie's blog as she talks about gentleness and be sure to check with us next week as we tackle the final fruit -- self-control.

1 comment:

Sue said...

An amazing analogy for gentleness! Thanks ;-)