Note: The key is not really to possess sweetness and strength - because to a considerable extent, these depend on how we are made - but to value sweetness and strength.
Brilliant insight; similar to the observation that advocating evil is worse than doing evil. It's easy to get discouraged as a Christian when one believes that one is constantly failing to be "good enough", but it should be enormously helpful to realize that there are other ways to score a victory.
@Tucker - Thank you. Yes, well after posting it I realized that - of course - I lack both sweetness and strength; although perhaps (because of my irritability) it is the lack of sweetness which is the main problem.
I have so far found this impossible to eliminate- and can only notice, repent and apologize.
I would much rather be sweeter, but repentance of hardness is (thanks to Jesus Christ, in both sense of 'thanks') *enough*.
@Adam- Thank you.
12 August 2015 at 17:15
Bruce B. said...
“Sweet” as the opposite of “sour” or “bitter” is probably right on but somehow it sounds effeminate. Is there a better term for how men should be? “Quiet” and “gentle” are precious traits for women in the eyes of the Lord. What’s the male equivalent?
There are four possible combinations of Sweetness/ Hardness and Strength/ Weakness
Sweetness and strength
Sweetness and weakness
Hardness and strength
Hardness and weakness
Some self-identified Christians are strong but lack sweetness - and no matter how strict their observance, how devout their lives, how obedient they are to legitimate authority - their hardness leads them to serve themselves and not God. (These are the Pharisees.)
Some self-identified Christians are sweet but lack strength - and no matter how lovingly they speak, their weakness leads them to serve the world and not God. (These are the Liberals.)
Some self-identified Christians are hard and weak - these are petty and spiteful individuals; but so unpopular that they seldom do harm to anybody but themselves. Since they lack admired qualities - in their own eyes as well as the world's - they are only one step of insight and acknowledgement away from humility and repentance.
The biggest danger is to have one positive quality without the other - Love or Courage but not both; and to convince oneself, and others, that this is superior: this is what is most needed here and now; and for the sweet-weak to despise strength (the average modern Christian or idealist secular Leftist); or the hard-strong to despise sweetness (the 'strict' Christian legalists and inquisitors or Nietzschian secular Right).
There are four possible combinations - but only sweetness and strength together will suffice. We should ask ourselves - do we have both? Does our church have both? And if we lack one, we should seek the other.
Note: The key is not really to possess sweetness and strength - because to a considerable extent, these depend on how we are made - but to value sweetness and strength. No matter how we are made, we can value sweetness and strength; and we can repent hardness and weakness.
"The Sweetness-Strength Matrix"
5 Comments -
Note: The key is not really to possess sweetness and strength - because to a considerable extent, these depend on how we are made - but to value sweetness and strength.
Brilliant insight; similar to the observation that advocating evil is worse than doing evil. It's easy to get discouraged as a Christian when one believes that one is constantly failing to be "good enough", but it should be enormously helpful to realize that there are other ways to score a victory.
12 August 2015 at 13:51
@Bruce,
this is a very good post. It is one of those very simple but revealing ways of looking at things.
12 August 2015 at 16:42
@Tucker - Thank you. Yes, well after posting it I realized that - of course - I lack both sweetness and strength; although perhaps (because of my irritability) it is the lack of sweetness which is the main problem.
I have so far found this impossible to eliminate- and can only notice, repent and apologize.
I would much rather be sweeter, but repentance of hardness is (thanks to Jesus Christ, in both sense of 'thanks') *enough*.
@Adam- Thank you.
12 August 2015 at 17:15
“Sweet” as the opposite of “sour” or “bitter” is probably right on but somehow it sounds effeminate. Is there a better term for how men should be? “Quiet” and “gentle” are precious traits for women in the eyes of the Lord. What’s the male equivalent?
12 August 2015 at 18:12
@BB - Sweet is le mot juste - I am reclaiming it!
12 August 2015 at 18:25