Strength Clothed

We met in the living room. Two couples. Older and younger. Married and about-to-be. My husband and I, the older and married pair, sat on stuffed tweed chairs across the coffee table from them. Side by side, facing us on our brown leather couch, hands intertwined, their love spoke like electricity through long glances and intimate smiles. We’d been meeting weekly, studying Scripture and looking ahead to their joining as one.

When we opened the Bible, there it was.

“…let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (1 Peter 3:3-4 (ESV).

Outgoing, full of laughter and fun, the bride-to-be lifted her eyes to mine. I could almost hear her think, Oh no! I’m in trouble. She did a double take from me to the passage and back at me again. A little bit of panic wrinkled her brows and puzzlement shone from wide brown eyes. Her future groom sat with his usual quiet reserve.

Those words, “gentle and quiet,” brought even my introverted self to a screeching halt.

I waited, feeling her words stir inside until they came out.

“I don’t want to be someone I’m not,” she said softly, confusion lacing her words.

In this passage, is Peter talking about personality? Two very different ones sat before me, and one was squirming uncomfortably.

My uneasiness with this particular verse has, in the past, caused me to shortchange what Peter describes as imperishable, beautiful, and precious in God’s sight, values I don’t want to ignore. In fact, though, Peter isn’t talking about our natural temperament at all; rather he refers here to the “spirit,” that place within us where God dwells. In a culture of chasing strength and assertiveness, gentle and quiet do not sell well. We seek to be strong women, not milk toast.

Could our definitions be skewed and the fount of true strength misunderstood?

When I look at Scripture, I see again and again a different image of gentleness than I might expect. In the original text, gentleness, sometimes translated as “meekness,” is the opposite of self-assertiveness and self-interest. The gentle person is not consumed with self.

In Matthew 11:29, Christ invites us to follow his example, saying, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart,” (NIV).

Meekness clothes inner strength. It is achieved through the power of the Holy Spirit and is beyond human will. Society often equates weakness and meekness as the same, not so in biblical description.

Then there is the word “quiet,” meaning steady, calm, settled due to a divinely inspired inner calm. The root word means firm, immovable, and steadfast.

The woman Peter describes trusts God’s goodness and control. She relies on God rather than on herself. Such a mighty display of yieldedness, of trust and surrender, is the response of a truly strong woman, one who is not deterred in faith by life’s storms.

In the topsy-turvy paradoxical truths of the Spiritual realm, Christ is made strong in our weakness. It is where he demonstrates his power.

The couple on the brown couch in our living room gazes at each other with that can’t-pull-your-eyes-away searching of the deeply in love. It is a language without words but clearly understood by them. Finally, the bride-to-be throws back her head and laughs.

Fear falls away like the long brown tresses that frame her face in waves.

I turn to my husband, our own silent communication seasoned by our history, which is inscribed with God’s faithfulness.

The indwelling of the Savior is the best thing any of us could want. It is gentle. It is quiet. And it lasts beyond all the chasing of this age into eternity, beautiful and precious in God’s sight.

Sylvia Schroeder and her husband care for missionaries world-wide with Avant Ministries. Captivated by God’s Word she writes with the perspective of someone who lived and raised four children overseas. Twelve grandchildren in her heart often wiggle onto her pages. She blogs at When the House is Quiet.

Photograph © Tyler McRobert, used with permission