When Jesus describes His own heart, the only time in the Gospels He tells us directly what He is like inside, He chooses two words: gentle and lowly. Not severe, not harsh, not hard to approach, but gentle and lowly in heart. This is the disposition of the Son of God toward the weary and burdened: not impatience with our weakness, but gentleness; not lofty distance, but lowly nearness. And He invites us to "learn from Me," to take on His character as we take on His yoke.

We become like what we behold, and we cannot grow gentle by staring at our own harshness and trying to file it down. We grow gentle by gazing at the gentleness of Christ, by letting the reality of how tenderly He deals with us sink in until it reshapes how we deal with others. The person who has felt the gentleness of Jesus toward their own failures finds harshness toward others slowly melting away. Gentleness is caught from Him as much as taught.

Come to the gentle and lowly Christ today, weary as you are, and find rest. Then carry His gentleness to others.