Today I resolve to wag more than bark. I can’t take credit for that line, I saw it on Facebook, but it is a great concept to hang a blog post on, right?

How many of you struggle with giving a kind or gentle answer when you are criticized or when things don’t go your way? See Proverbs 15:1. How do you respond when you see people making the same mistakes, and you can’t seem to get through to them that they are doing it wrong? See Matthew 7:3-5. How gentle are you when your have to correct your children or grandchildren?

This has been a struggle for me too. But I’m reaching for a better Guidepost to take me there.  The same Jesus who created my innermost being is the One who gave his very life as a brutal sacrifice to pay for my sins – yes including my sin of defending myself with resentful words. This Jesus, Son of God, also gave me His Spirit to live in me and to help me to overcome those negative responses.

The gentle answers I am seeking can’t be drummed up on my own, they have to come from the prompting of he Holy Spirit. My spirit wants to harbor resentment, but yielding to His Spirit will give me the power to rise above those bitter feelings and to respond in love.

Father God, thank you for sending your Son, Jesus the Christ, to love me before I was even conceived and to die for my sins. Keep filling me with Your Spirit so I can bubble with thankfulness and joy, even under criticism and respond in love with gentle words. Help me to continually grow in faith so that even in times when I must correct others, I can do it with gentle words like the Great Shepherd might use with His sheep. Amen.