A Gentle and Quiet Spirit
I was honored when Ray asked me back in the spring of 1981 to contribute to the Entrust These Things booklet to give to graduating seniors from the Christian student group he led at Ole Miss. I have often wondered why he gave me the topic: “A Gentle and Quiet Spirit.” If I had given it to me, it would have been because I knew I needed to grow in those areas. It helped me to read it again last weekend. I hope it will help you, too.
And this is how I looked in the summer of 1981 after recently giving birth to the first Notgrass daughter in 53 years, Bethany Kathleen Notgrass. We miss her more and more. Thank you for everyone who has been praying for us. Standing beside us is two-year-old John. Mary Evelyn came along two years later.
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A Gentle and Quiet Spirit
Charlene Notgrass
Spring 1981
In 1 Peter 3:4, we are encouraged to let our adornment be “the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.” It makes me feel that being a woman is something very special when I read Peter telling women how to have a quality that is precious in God’s sight. Knowing God will see something in me as precious makes me really want to be completely gentle and quiet of spirit.
To have this quality, we must work hard at studying Jesus’ life because He had the most gentle and quiet spirit. To be this way, we, like Jesus, must totally accept our circumstances and be content and at peace, knowing that with God’s strength we can bear anything to do His will. To have gentleness takes strength, not weakness. Harshness and wanting our own way are characteristics of weakness. Only a strong woman can be gentle. We can use this gentle strength to work at changing the circumstances of our lives as long as we stay in God’s will, but ultimately the gentle and quiet spirit can accept the things we women cannot change.
Strength is also required for having a quiet spirit. Only a quiet spirit can give us quiet mouths. Talking is easy. Restraint is the difficult job. Complaining is not characteristic of the quiet spirit. Paul says in Philippians 2:14: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing.” The woman with a quiet spirit may tell someone about her problems, but it is done in a way that seeks help and comfort and not to fuss about “this awful thing that happened to me.”
In Ephesians 4:29b, Paul writes that we should speak “only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear.” I believe that when a woman with a quiet spirit says something, she gently tries to give a wise answer and just what the person needs to hear at that moment. She thinks before she speaks and doesn’t speak rashly. Also, there is no room for gossip in the speech of a gentle and quiet woman. It is out of character.
A gentle and quiet spirit in a woman is a result of knowing that total peace with God and total peace with self has been given to her because Jesus died on the cross. It is created by allowing God’s Spirit to work on a heart that is completely pliable, willing to live just as God wills, no matter what that requires of her. It is God’s will that we think about gentleness and quietness daily and that we live gently and quietly.
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Ray and I had been married seven years in 1981, and now we have been married 50. My need to think about gentleness and quietness daily and my need to live gently and quietly has not changed.
This I know: You and I are precious to God. He is kind to see our gentleness and quietness as precious, and that makes me want completely to submit myself to His holy will.
Your adornment must not be merely external—
braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry,
or putting on dresses;
but let it be the hidden person of the heart,
with the imperishable quality
of a gentle and quiet spirit,
which is precious in the sight of God.
1 Peter 3:3-4