Gentle Giant?

I often find myself vacillating between believing that kindness as strength and kindness as weakness.

I don't believe gentleness is weak; in fact, it is active. It takes more strength to be kind than it does to be brutal, because it involves restraint and self reflection. It requires grace to see beyond the fault and find the need.

The world, however, is a different story. The world believes that gentleness is a sign of inferiority. It inhibits you from career promotion, from being taken seriously, from being seen as a good "leader." I know for a fact that if I were the kind of cut throat like many of the individuals I know, I would be in a leadership position.

But the problem is, I would not be fit to lead.

True leadership is not about control, because true leaders exercise passive control. They don't have to beat somebody into submission. People want to follow them. They allow others to develop their leadership skills.

I'd rather live my life struggling to be firm, but gentle, than to be rewarded for being brutal. Ultimately, nobody respects someone they fear, and neither do they truly love them. The bible reminds us that perfect love casts out all fear.

I suppose this is an age old question, is it better to be loved or feared? Maybe the answer is both: it is better to be revered. The Bible is always saying we should fear God, but when you try to reconcile that with perfect love casting out all fear, the implication becomes to love perfectly, fear is obliterated. You could infer then, that the biblical text describes to fear means to hold reverence for something.

I serve a God that the gentle enough to be concerned with my every need, to love me in my state of imperfection, yet is the roaring wind of inevitibility that no living thing can overcome.

Yet if God, who is as Muhammad Ali said "the greatest" can be gentle enough to love us despite our flaws, who are we to be any different?

It reminds me of the Fred Hammond song "Sometimes I gotta remind myself, that what I'm called to do, is first to be with you."


(From "The Prince" written by Niccolo Machiavelli rests mainly on his political treatise Il Principe (The Prince), written around 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after his death)


Chapter XV: Of the Qualities In Respect of Which Men, and Most of all Princes, Are Praised or Blamed
And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.


There is no fear in love: but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he that feareth is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18