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How Gentle

Years ago, I was driving across a busy Idaho highway in a big truck. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and I was thoroughly enjoying it. I was on highway 30, which at that time had a 65 mile-per-hour speed limit, except the part I was on. It was 55, but I thought I was on the 65 and I was driving like it was 65. You see the problem. There I was clipping along, taking in the scenery, enjoying the day, just loving life, when suddenly I passed an Idaho State Trooper. I didn’t give him much thought. I mean, why should I? I was legal – wasn’t I? No sooner had I passed him than my CB radio barked to life, causing me to jump.

“Hey, Handy,” a deep voice said.

“Yes,” I answered.

“You’re going 69 miles-per-hour.”

I laughed nervously, “Yes.” I knew who it was.

And then he said with kind of a drawl, “You have an extra $53 you don’t know what to do with?”

“No,” I said. “I’ll keep it.”

“55 will do just fine,” he said firmly.

“Okay, thank you.”

Then you could almost see the grin on this officer’s face as he added, “You owe me.”

“That I do,” I said, “that I do.” And I went on my way down the road, relieved and chuckling to myself. And you know, I obeyed that speed limit for the rest of the day.

Now that officer could have really taken it to me. He had every right. I was clearly in the wrong; I was breaking the law. He could have pulled me over, chewed me out, inspected my rig, cited me, and a host of other things if he had wanted to. But he didn’t, and at least for my case, he didn’t have to; it wasn’t necessary. I’m pretty conscientious about obeying traffic laws. All I needed was a gentle reminder.

We mortals are not perfect. All of us break the laws of God. And when you think about it, if God wanted to, He could be pretty harsh with us, but He’s not that way. For those of us who are trying, He doesn’t need to be. He’s merciful, kind, gentle, and He’s persistently persuasive with reminders. In fact, a hymn came to my mind that day and to me it says everything about the parenting style of Heavenly Father and the Savior. It says:

How gentle God’s commands!
How kind his precepts are!
Come, cast your burdens on the Lord
And trust his constant care.

Those words were penned by Philip K. Doddridge an English non-comformist minister. Philip’s paternal grandfather, John Doddridge, was a minister in the Church of England. In 1662, he stood against the King of England in defense of his principles and was ejected from his position in the Church. John Bauman was Philip’s maternal grandfather.

As a Lutheran minister he was forced to flee Prague because of religious persecution in 1626. He came to England.

Philip was born the twentieth of twenty children. By the age of 13 Philip was an orphan and only one sister survived to adulthood. In time Philip turned from the study of law and trained for the ministry. When invited to prepare for position in in the Church of England, he declined, choosing instead to retain his independence. His first lessons in faith had come at his mother’s knee and undoubtedly she had brought him to cherish the principles of his fathers.

In time he became a presbyterian minister at a time and in a place of religious contention. Yet, having seen enough of intolerance and bigotry, Philip sought tirelessly for healing and unity. One biographer said this of him, “Doddridge carried out his own ideal with great fidelity and with conspicuous success, doing more than any man in the 18th century to obliterate old party lines, and to unite nonconformists on a common religious ground. He did not escape the criticisms both of the zealots who maintained a higher standard of ‘orthodoxy,’ that is to say of Calvinism, and of the class of thinkers who practically met the deism of the age halfway.”

Moreover, Doddridge cared for the poor, no matter their religious persuasions. In 1737, he “set up a charity school’ for teaching and clothing the children of the poor…. He had an important share in the foundation of the county infirmary. He proposed the formation of a society for distributing bibles and other good books among the poor. His scheme for the advancement of the gospel at home and abroad, presented to three different assemblies of ministers in 1741, has been described as the first nonconformist project of foreign missions…. In 1748 he laid before Archbishop Herring a proposal for occasional interchange of pulpits between the established and dissenting clergy.”

To his highest honor, Doddridge’s daughter said of him, “The orthodoxy my father taught his children was charity.”

In an age and time, much like our own, when the love of men waxes cold, Philip K. Doddridge was a rare soul who understood this eternal truth, that God is a loving gentle Father who desires His children to take care of each other, and for His family to just get along.

Sources:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Doddridge,_Philip
http://www.laricemusic.com/2014howgentlegodscommands.html