Power with Restraint

In my teen years,  I attended a Bible study where the leader sweetly shared the verse in 2 Peter 3:4, which tells wives their beauty should come from a "gentle and quiet spirit." I looked around at the room full of timid girls in which I was the most talkative one and thought,  "Does that mean I need to be more like them?" I resented that idea and for years assumed gentle equates subservient and soft-spoken.

As I got older, I learned "quiet spirit" does not mean "quiet everything," but I always had a hard time describing the word "gentle." At Waterville church this past Sunday, David VanDuzer defined gentleness in a unique way I hadn't considered before: "power with restraint." A toddler has the power to hurt a kitten, but we tell them to use "gentle hands" when holding it. When exercising, I have the power to slam a dumbbell to the ground, but instead I am gentle, so as to not mark my floor. Scott Bartlett said he uses gentle laundry detergent, that cleans his clothes thoroughly without irritating his skin. 

In a similar way,  Jesus used gentleness. He knew the law inside and out - he came up with it - and had full power to execute it. But many times we see him restrain his power and instead enact forgiveness, like when He forgives an adulterous woman in John 8:1-11. The teachers of the law are ready to stone her. But Jesus says, "If anyone is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Not surprisingly, they all disperse. Think of how awesome church would be if all of us adopted this view of gentleness,  which focuses not on timidity, but on forgiveness!