Easy does it!

Have you ever heard this phrase before? People use it to tell someone to act carefully or to  treat something gently.  Maybe you are moving something that is breakable and so you don’t want to drop it with a thud.  Or maybe you are rushing to do something and you just need to take your time.

We’ve spent the past few weeks looking at the Fruit of the Spirit that are found in the verse from Galatians 5:22-23, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…” We’ve talked about how Jesus showed us how to have this fruit in our lives and taught us that having this fruit is evidence of His Spirit in our hearts.

We come to the last two of these “fruits”—gentleness and self-control.  I think these two fruits are related.  If we are going to act with gentleness, we are also showing self-control because we must take care.  Let’s consider a nest of baby birds as we think about these two.

The Spring is a time when a lot of birds have babies.  Notice how the person taking this video showed gentleness and self-control.  They walked up to the next quietly.  They didn’t touch this next or disturb it in any way.  They didn’t want to scare the little nestlings.  They didn’t talk loudly or try to do anything to harm them.  Even though they were curious, they respected that the Mamma bird was probably nearby watching over her young.  They knew that Mamma bird would be distressed if anything happened to her babies.

Proverbs 16:27 warns, Troublemakers create disasters.  But if we have the fruit of gentleness and self-control we will be more like Peacemakers who create harmony.  Let’s look to Jesus for that example of being gentle, showing self-control, peacemaking, living in harmony with God and our neighbors!

Lovingly, Mrs. Bess