Gentle Words

Gentle Words

Make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. 2 Peter 1:5-7

One serene afternoon, as Diane and Peace checked the travel itinerary for the next week, Diane timidly thanked her boss for never yelling at her. Then she asked how she managed to bring out so much good in others.

Peace smiled. “Oh, I do plenty of yelling,” she said. “I just reserve that for the neighborhood dogs digging in my flower garden, not for fellow travelers in this thing we loosely call ‘life.’ The Lord taught me something a long time ago: If he could love and use Peter, even though he knew the salty old fisherman was going to deny him publicly three times, then who am I to judge how folks are going to turn out?”

Peace put on her glasses, reached for her ever-present Bible, and turned to John 13:38. “This is just one of the Gospel accounts in which Jesus predicted that the very man who had just said he would lay down his life for the Lord would, in fact, deny him three times before daybreak. And by the time we get to John 18:27, that’s exactly what happened.”

She flipped through several more pages. “Now look in Acts 2. Here, Peter is preaching at Pentecost. And in verse 41, it says about three thousand people became believers that day. Even more followed that number, all through the preaching of the very one who had denied the Lord three times.”

Peace smiled at Diane. “To see the best in others without being blind to their weaknesses is an example our Lord set numerous times. And as long as we keep our eyes on him and off ourselves, miracles will continue to happen, first in us and then in the folks around us.”

As Diane’s employer took off her glasses, Diane made a mental note to read those Scripture passages for herself that evening. So this was what it meant to be a follower of the Lord and not of oneself. —SANDRA

Lord, thank you for reminding me you never are finished with any of us, not even me. Help me not to sit in judgment of others. Help me to see them as you do. And help me to see myself through your tender eyes as well.

Life is short and we have not too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.

—HENRI FREDERIC AMIEL (1821–1881), SWISS PHILOSOPHER, POET, AND CRITIC