Day 2 All-forgiving Gentleness

Two Studies of a Woman and Child, Rembrandt

“What if, instead, were given to (the child) the thought well expressed in the words, ‘The all-forgiving gentleness of God’?”

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“We all know how soothing is the presence of a gentle person in a room….”
 
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“I was lost in a happy reverie––how I might sometime come to show her that her mother's ever-ready forgiveness was but a faint picture of what someone calls the ‘all-forgiving gentleness of God,’”
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“But no mere assertion of authority will do: it is the old story of the sun and the wind and the traveler’s cloak. It is in the force of all-mighty gentleness that parents are supreme; not feebleness, not inertness––there is no strength in these; but purposeful, determined gentleness, which carries its point, only ‘for it is right.’ ‘The servant of God must not strive,’ was not written for bishops and pastors alone, but is the secret of strength for every ‘bishop,’ or overlooker, of a household.”

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“I remark that Christ would have his people excel all others in gentleness”
                                                    ~ Spurgeon

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“Here is a text, words spoken by Jesus, that keeps this in clear focus: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life. We can’t proclaim the Jesus truth but then do it any old way we like. Nor can we follow the Jesus way without speaking the Jesus truth.                                                                   

     But Jesus as the truth gets far more attention than Jesus as the way. Jesus as the way is the most frequently evaded metaphor among the Christians with whom I have worked for fifty years as a North American pastor. In the text that Jesus sets before us so clearly and definitively, way comes first. We cannot skip the way of Jesus in our hurry to get to the truth of Jesus as he is worshiped and proclaimed. The way of Jesus is the way that we practice and come to understand the truth of Jesus, living Jesus in our homes and workplaces, with our friends and family.”             
                                                     ~  Eugene Peterson
                                                                            
 
 
Examen: What does “purposeful, determined gentleness” look like in the classroom? Where am I trying to do Jesus’ work in a non-Jesus way? With what or whom am I striving for the sake of a particular outcome?

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What if, instead:  Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:345.
We all know:  Charlotte M. Mason, Ourselves, 4:42 Bk.I.
I was lost:  Charlotte M. Mason, Formation of Character, 5:85–86.
But no mere assertion: 5:201.
I remark that Christ: Charles H Spurgeon, “A Call to Holy Living.,” n.d.
Here is a text: Peterson, The Jesus Way, 4.

Day 2 All-forgiving Gentleness meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025

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