“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.” – James 3:17
During my days in the Army, I developed a fascination with the Drill Sergeant. Here was a person who commanded such respect and even fear. A Drill Sergeant was supposed to make your life difficult. They were trained to tear a civilian down and then rebuild them into a soldier. There was a lot of hollering. There was a lot of physical conditioning administered as a form of correction. There was a lot of name calling.
Many outside the military do not always understand this method of indoctrination. “Why demoralize a person whom you are trying to train to be brave and defend the country?”
All I can say is that the specific task of tearing one down for the purpose of rebuilding them into someone else should not be understood as a necessarily bad thing. I found the experience empowering. The person I became was more admirable than the person I had been.
But, during these days of tearing down and rebuilding, I pondered the methods my wife and I were using to raise our sons. We had used a gentle form of spanking but even by the age of three, it became clear that such a method would not remain effective. Big boys need better correction than a swat on the backside.
Enter the Drill Sergeant. I reasoned that the same methods that worked on me could work in our efforts to raise our sons. I became a type of Drill Sergeant to them. When they would not settle down to sleep, I took all of them into the hallway and made them do bear crawls or push ups. When they fought incessantly with each other, I took them outside and made them do laps. And all the while, I talked to them like the Drills talked to me. Fake anger and loud instruction. Hollering. You get the idea.
And these techniques which were so instrumental in my transformation into a soldier should have worked brilliantly as I sought to parent my children. Right?
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
While the physical exercises deterred them from certain behaviours, what my boys came to understand about their dad is that he was less a loving, gentle father and more an angry Drill Sergeant.
And so, I learned a hard lesson. Wisdom from God would point to the value of peace, gentleness, and mercy. It’s not the kind of mercy that allows children to do whatever they want or to get away with bad behaviour, but it’s one that recognizes that some of the lessons children need to learn point to a question: “What does peace, gentleness, and mercy look like?” And I needed to model those traits regularly to them if I wanted them to behave that way as adults later in life.
I want to encourage you to employ peace, gentleness, and mercy as often as you can. Not only is the fruit that comes from an indwelling Holy Spirit, but it is you modelling to others what wisdom looks like. Peace stimulates further peace. Gentleness encourages more gentleness. Mercy always fosters further mercy.
That sounds like great wisdom to me.