00:00:02 Speaker 1: Life Audio. 00:00:15 Speaker 2: You're listening to every Day Prayers with million praying moms helping you pray God's word for your family in the areas you need at most. 00:00:21 Speaker 3: I'm your host, Nicolett Bell. Here. 00:00:23 Speaker 2: We believe prayer isn't a last resort, It's our first and best response in parenting, and every day we come together to partner with God for the hearts of our children. Today, we are excited to have Christy Thomas, author of Everyday Prayers for Gentleness, here with us on the podcast, and we are diving into what it looks like to offer gentleness to a hurting world that is longing for gentleness. And we're going to kind of talk about our cultural context and how gentleness fits into it. And I am so excited for today's conversation. We'll get right to it after a quick word. 00:00:57 Speaker 3: From our sponsors. 00:01:01 Speaker 2: Christy, we are so glad to have you back with us on the Everyday Prayers Podcast today. 00:01:05 Speaker 3: Welcome to the show. 00:01:07 Speaker 2: Thank you for having me again. We're so glad that you are here. For those that maybe missed last week or don't know you. Give us just a quick intro who are you and tell us about your kids Okay, Well, I am Christy Thomas and I am from Western Canada and I've written the book every Day Prayers for Gentleness, among several other books for families and children. 00:01:28 Speaker 3: And I was a children's ministry. 00:01:31 Speaker 4: Director for a long time, which is why I write books mostly for families and children, and now I'm mostly an author and a parent. My boys are seventeen, fourteen, and twelve, and then I have a husband who I won't tell you his age because he would not appreciate that. 00:01:46 Speaker 2: And you homeschool your boys, I do homeschool Melada, so that's really cool. We have a large homeschool community here at milnd prying moms, so I always love to put that in when we have homeschool and moms on the show. Okay, Christy, So last week we kind of talked about how Jesus's death on the Cross was the ultimate display of gentleness, and we kind of talked about what it means to be gentle and how we misunderstand it in that restraint of power. So if you miss that episode, go back and grab it, but if not, you can jump right in with us today where we're starting, and I just want to open our conversation today like why do we need gentleness? Why did you feel like this was a book we needed to write? 00:02:29 Speaker 4: Okay, well, when I was first approached to write one of the everyday prayers books, they said, okay, well, here's the ones that you could choose from. You could choose from kindness or gentleness. And I immediately thought, we have to do gentleness. Gentleness is so radical, it is so hard to do. It's the one for the spirit that nobody wants. We don't want to grow in gentleness, but I knew it's the one that our world needs most right now. And I wrote this book two years ago and it's just coming out now, and we need gentleness even more now. And I can tell you why. It's because we're allso stressed out, because we are living in an outrage culture. You look at any you know, psychology, any news thing. We're constantly living in a state of outrage where we're angry at somebody, so we're angry at the other political people. 00:03:19 Speaker 3: We are We're always have hot takes, hot takes. That's a hot take on ice cream the other day and it. 00:03:24 Speaker 4: Got like millions of views that she was granting about how ice cream doesn't melt anymore. 00:03:30 Speaker 3: There's a hot take for every topic. You could probably have a hot take about ear rings. I don't know, like just these. It's it's so ridiculous, and we live in such a polarized culture. 00:03:41 Speaker 4: Where and you know, I don't know if it's just a social media or if COVID started this or just COVID just kind of exacerbated it, where we feel like everybody has to have an opinion about everything and everybody and you can't get along with the people. You have to constantly try and commit convince the people who have the opposite opinions about everything, and it is stressing us out so hard. 00:04:03 Speaker 3: It makes us so anxious. 00:04:05 Speaker 4: And like this mental health crisis among parents right now partly because of this, because and we're trying to be perfect, we're trying to do parenting well, and yet we live in this place where everybody's angry all the time, and it's so hard on us. 00:04:20 Speaker 3: We're meant to live this way. 00:04:22 Speaker 4: And here is maybe the bigger problem for Christians is that the world often looks at Christians and says you're the problem. 00:04:29 Speaker 3: You're well, maybe not you're the problem, but you are a huge source of the problem. 00:04:32 Speaker 4: I've heard people say, oh, you know, somebody had a really mean comment on Instagram, and they went to go look at their profile, and sure enough, it talked about Jesus as if like it's just accepted that Christians are mean people and that is not okay, that is not Jesus said, they will know you're my disciples by your love, not by the fact that you can trump any argument, that you can win anything. Jonathan Edwards, who is not known for his gentle who was a preacher during I'm the Great Awakening. I'm not super familiar with him, but i do know he was not known for his gentleness. He was like a fire and brimstone preacher. But he said that gentleness is that lamb like dovelike spirit and temper. That is the true and distinguishing disposition of the hearts of Christians, the true and distinguishing disposition of the hearts of Christians. So if Christians are supposed if that's like the mark of a Christian, we have really a far astray from that. We are called to be different. Not the problem itself. A Christian response, I think is not to pick a side and to fire more shots and to be right and to prove to people that we're right. But it's found in having the same attitude as Christ. Jesus, who did not consider equality with God is something to be grasped. That he humbled himself and became a servant, and he died on the cross for us, and we are explicitly called have that same attitude because gentleness is the very heart of the Gospel and Christ. 00:06:06 Speaker 2: You just quoted Philippians too, for those that may not pick that up, if you want to read more about that. It's one of the first passage passages of scripture that I'm memorized, and it's just such a beautiful example of the heart of Christ, and so much as kind of rooted in that you have the same mind as that of Jesus, who didn't take power, he didn't abuse his power. He showed us another way in your so rit. It's exactly what our world is longing for him. 00:06:34 Speaker 4: And I think that if we want our gospel witness to be effective, if we're trying to point people to Jesus, we need. 00:06:42 Speaker 3: To be a lot more like Jesus. 00:06:44 Speaker 4: If people are looking and just assuming that by our social media profiles, oh, the person's a Christian because they're mean, and look, they have Jesus in their bio. That is not how you're going to share the gospel with people. That is not a gospel that anybody wants. People don't want more stress and anger. They want there's something about gentleness that that draws people in, about a withholding of power for the sake of others. I saw this story the other day about these two churches in Texas, that one was pretty small, but they had a big building, and one was big and they had a tiny building. And the church with the small building or the big building and this dwindling congregation, he swallowed his pride, he became humble, and he approached the other church and he said, you want to switch buildings, And they literally no dollars changed hands, They just switched buildings. And I was like, that's the kind of stuff that makes people go, Yes, that is what Christians are supposed to be doing, modeling a different way, a completely different way from the world. 00:07:43 Speaker 3: We are not supposed to look like the world. 00:07:45 Speaker 4: And we have gotten way too comfortable with the outrage and anger that the world shows. And sometimes I think we feel like, well, if we don't show righteous outrage and moral outrage than how we're going to fix things in the world. 00:08:02 Speaker 3: But that is that's actually not the Christian way. Jesus didn't. 00:08:06 Speaker 4: His moral outrage was only ever toward the religious leaders, not ward the hurting. 00:08:12 Speaker 3: And the world and the broken weak. 00:08:16 Speaker 4: I could go on this for a while, but because it's really bugging me, really really bigging me, that we are just leaning into the outrage. And the Book of James says that human anger does not produce the kind of righteousness that God requires. 00:08:31 Speaker 3: It. 00:08:32 Speaker 4: It's not we want to live in righteous we have righteous anger. Well, I'm not sure that how much righteous anger is really in existence. That's not God's anger because a human anger does not accomplish God's righteousness. 00:08:45 Speaker 3: So we have to be so careful not to live in human anger. 00:08:49 Speaker 2: Such an interesting point, Christy, that you're bringing up, because I think so often we can be like, okay, well, we want to model our lives after Jesus, right, Like we want to look like Jesus, and so we look at his life and what he did and we want to model that, mimic that, and that's totally biblical. But I think there's certain sense there that we also need to know that are some things about Jesus that we cannot model, and we should not model, because he was fully God even when he was on earth, and so all judgment and righteous anger belongs to him because he is the only righteous one, right, and so that's maybe not something that we're supposed to mimic in his about him right now, we should be angry when we see injustice in the world, right, that's what he was angry about that we are supposed to model, and that he taught us, you know, to care for the needy and to care for those who are are less than are in a lesser than situation or whatever than you. And so are the least of these, I guess is what I'm saying, not lesser least of these. And so I think that, you know, so often we can just say, we can cling to that turning of the tables. 00:09:57 Speaker 3: Moment, like he was. 00:10:01 Speaker 2: Right, he was God, and he only did that twice, right, that was like two times that we read about that in the gospel. The everyday interactions of Christ were different. They were gentle, they were and you're right, they were on the anger and the even the the harsh teaching, tarsh words were really directed at the religious leaders, and so it's just amazing to really slow down and think about that and kind of think a little bit sharper about that. 00:10:30 Speaker 4: And I think that Jesus flipping the tables was actually an aspect of his gentleness. So in the last episode we talked about how gentleness is a withholding of control for the sake of the vulnerable. Well, the reason Jesus flipped those tables was because those people were taking advantage of the foreigner and the poor, and so he's like, this is not what you were supposed to be doing in here. This is not okay, And that's why he flipped those tables. It never says that he whipped people. There's copious Renaissance art that show like women and children being like w No, that's not the Jesus always said. I was like, did you Renaissance artists like actually read the Bible? Maybe wasn't translated into their language. 00:11:08 Speaker 3: Yet, But that's not the Jesus that we see in the gospels at all. 00:11:12 Speaker 4: He's whipping the animals get out of here, that's what you do with animals. 00:11:15 Speaker 3: Move. 00:11:17 Speaker 4: He's getting the oxen out of there and releasing the doves and flipping tables. 00:11:21 Speaker 3: It doesn't say that he's whipping people. 00:11:23 Speaker 4: But you're so right that that maybe not not every aspect of Jesus can be modeled well, because we are human. I never actually thought of that really, right, you know. 00:11:37 Speaker 2: We're made in His image, but we're not God, like God is other than us, right, So. 00:11:43 Speaker 4: Well, in our sin gets in the way, right well, And I think that's why I said human anger does not produce the kind of righteousness that God calls us to. And I feel like in almost every one of the letters of Paul, he says something like this, get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice there's that's in Colostions. 00:12:05 Speaker 3: There's probably one in Galatians, to like, it's all over the place where he's like. 00:12:09 Speaker 4: Get rid of your anger, stop being angry, stop living in anger. Now I'm getting angry, I'm just getting anger. 00:12:18 Speaker 3: I guess I'm. 00:12:19 Speaker 4: Exciting because I'm hoping that this is something that that we can truly live into and that we can see a change in our Christian communities that we say I refuse to live in this. I'm giving my anger to God and I'm going to live in in the gentleness of Christ instead, And I can't even imagine what the church would look like as a whole. I know that there are amazing Christians who are already living like this. I know a lot of Christians who live in this already. But if the church as a whole became known for our gentleness and not for our anger, what would the world. 00:12:53 Speaker 2: Be like And how many people would want to know Jesus as a result of that, And how many of our children would be drawn closer to Jesus if they saw that lived out in us as moms, because they're longing for something authentic, right, That's what the next generation is longing for is authenticity, and they're looking at us to see if our faith is authentic. And gentleness, to me is one of the best ways that we can show authentic faith. It's humility, right of humbling ourselves. 00:13:29 Speaker 4: One of the things that I did at a homeschool conference last year, and I have this on my website as well, and it's actually one of the free resources that people get if they go to my website for the Gentleness book is a class called Becoming a Slow to Anger Parent. Because as parents. One of the biggest reasons. 00:13:46 Speaker 2: Watch to go download that when we're finished. 00:13:50 Speaker 4: Reasons why we're pushing our kids away from faith is that we're living and reacting out. 00:13:55 Speaker 3: Of anger all the time. 00:13:57 Speaker 4: And there was a long term research study that was done that followed a whole bunch of families for over thirty five years, and they discovered that when the primary thing that holds children in the face of their parents is a good connection with their parents. So anger damages that. When we lash out at our kids in anger, that damages that relationship with our kids. And I'm not saying we don't discipline, that's not don't hear me saying any of that stuff, But I'm saying and when we lash out in reactivity, in anger all the time, that damages that relationship with our kids. So if we want our kids to know christ, if we want the world to know Christ, we have got to stop lashing out in anger. 00:14:37 Speaker 2: Man, you've convicted me this morning, Christie's So I've got to go download the Slow to Be Anger Parents. Because last night we had had just I had worked all day, My husband didn't get home till like right at bedtime, like seven, seven thirty he's walking in from the hospital, and like the baby's crying and Josie's like wanting to see dad and not wanting to go to bed and all that, you know, in this moment of just parenting in the in the middle of everything, and and I just yelled at her over something ridiculous, Like it wasn't about discipline, it wasn't about it was about that I was stressed out, and I just took it out on her, right. And so it's like in that in those moments, you know, if it was just like maybe a one time thing, I just you know, okay, let it go, give yourself some grace or whatever. But I'm noticing this is becoming a pattern the more, and like adding a second child into our family and just the level of stress just kind of going up in general. And you know, how am I reacting to her? And how are my words? You know, I get frustrated when she uses a sharp tongue with me, but I'm showing her that I'm like, I'm hearing myself and what my four year old is saying back to me, right, And so I've already kind of begun to be convicted about this. And so this morning This is just such a beautiful reminder of Christ shows us another way, and how I interact with her will show her what he looks like. 00:15:58 Speaker 3: Mm hm, And you have responsibility. 00:16:01 Speaker 2: It is and there is grace, but there's there's also a movement to that of wanting to be. 00:16:08 Speaker 3: More like Christ and pursuing him more exactly. 00:16:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, so we'll all go download that from your website when we listen to this episode. Christy, thank you for that, and we'll keep that in mind as we are reading through every Day Prayers for Gentleness because this has been such a great conversation. I have just enjoyed kind of diving into this, and we're going to continue on Fridays to look at some of these. 00:16:32 Speaker 3: Hot takes on gentleness. 00:16:34 Speaker 2: Afraid to say that word, Chris, you might get me about hot take on ice cream, right. 00:16:39 Speaker 3: We'll call it something up. We'll just continue to. 00:16:41 Speaker 2: Talk about gentleness and some of the kind of maybe more controversial things around it or how we can live that out as moms and as believers. 00:16:49 Speaker 3: So Christy, thanks for. 00:16:51 Speaker 2: Journeying with us in this, and we're continuing to read through every Day Prayers for Gentleness on the podcast. You can find all everything you need to know about that at our website, Million Praying Moms dot com. 00:17:03 Speaker 3: We hope that you will connect. 00:17:04 Speaker 2: With us there and Christy tell everybody how they can connect with you for sure. 00:17:08 Speaker 4: So if you want that Slow to Anger parenting class, you need to go to Little Shoots Deep Roots dot com slash Gentleness and you can download it there. 00:17:17 Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll be doing that right after we conclude today. 00:17:20 Speaker 2: So thanks friends, and we will see you back on Monday. 00:17:24 Speaker 1: Are you a visual learner? 00:17:25 Speaker 2: Would you like to receive our daily devotions and written form right to your inbox? Then join our Patreon community of Praying Moms. Not only will you receive the transcripts of each podcast devotional, you will also receive a monthly prayer calendar and surprise bonus content. 00:17:41 Speaker 3: Learn more about our Praying Mom. 00:17:42 Speaker 2: Community in today's show notes or at Million Prayingmoms dot com. 00:17:48 Speaker 3: Till next time, friends, the Lord bless you and keep you. 00:17:52 Speaker 2: Make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.