BLESSED ARE THE MEEK

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.”
Matthew 5:3-5


How do you respond to this injunction of our Lord’s—to be meek?

Do you respond with the thoughts: “I am already a very meek person?”

Or, do your find yourself saying, “Meekness? No, thanks! I don’t want to be a doormat.”

Or, maybe you say, “Ah meekness….not so easy!”

As for me, meekness was a nigh impossible virtue to cultivate. It took many years after I had received the gift of salvation before the Holy Spirit even began prompting me about valuing this virtue. But by this time, the Lord had done much stretching and shaping in my life.

I don’t know about you, but before I was saved my favourite song might have been Frank Sinatra’s “I did it my way,” had I known the song then. I believed very much in my accomplishments, and relished in getting obstacles out of my way to worldly success. I believed so much more in self-assertion than in dependency on God or others.

I think anyone stands in a better stead of cultivating this virtue than me.

But today, I rejoice with the Lord, and agree. Yes, Lord, ‘Blessed indeed are the meek!!!’

On the road to cultivating meekness, I have realized one thing. Some people are temperamentally meek. Their secure home background, and obedience to loving parents have prepared them to have a seemingly meek demeanour.

Others have tried to convince me that they are very meek and obliging people, always very accommodating.

To a certain extent, the two groups of people above are right, but I can tell you that I have encountered the stiffest resistance from them when I bring forward some spiritual truths to them that are counter to their own personal belief. They can be resistant in the coolest, but most polite way.

On the other hand, there are people who would be resisting authority and offending people most of the time. However, when confronted with spiritual truths, they can be most accepting and easily convicted.

So in my search for this seemingly illusive virtue, I went to the bible. There are two people the bible clearly describe as “meek.” Moses in the Old Testament, and Jesus in the New Testament.

When I had wanted to learn faith, I studied the man of faith, Abraham. I found to my greatest amazement that Abraham had failed so many times, in quite disastrous ways…and yet, God had counted faith to his account. Then, I realized Abraham was a man God had cultivated faith in. He has walked with God and had learnt how to trust in a faithful God…that was faith.

So when I wanted to study meekness, I went to look at the life of Moses. And I found this statement made about him—it was an aside, or a ‘by-the-way’ kind of remark, made about Moses:

(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.) Numbers 12:3

On studying Moses, I realized there are two Moses…the Moses before the desert experience…the one who murdered an Egyptian official; and the Moses who met God at the Burning Bush and was forever changed.

"When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites. He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. [Acts 7:23-24]

Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh. [Ex 7:7]

The Moses who was the Prince of Egypt was a self-assured, self-assertive young man. In my old mindset, a man like him, like Obama, would have been my hero. Then Moses fled into the desert, and the real shaping of the man started. It took 40 years before Moses emerged as the “meek man,” ready to be used by God. Even then, he got temperamental at an important time—in Numbers Chapter 20—and this unfortunate show of temperament had cost him entry into the Promised Land!

How much God demands from us when we want to be used by God!

Another character who impresses me is Joseph. Joseph was a man well-bred, and loved above all his brothers. He had dreams of greatness:

“Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, "Listen to this dream I had: We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it."

His brothers said to him, "Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?" And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. "Listen," he said, "I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me." [Genesis 37:5-9]

What is most interesting is that Joseph next ends up in a pit. After that, he got into an even bigger pit….a prison. For what? For doing the right thing…resisting Potiphar’s wife’s adulterous advances. How did Joseph behave in prison? Was he bitter against God? Was he perplexed? We don’t really know the emotional process he went through between the time he landed in prison and the time when God gave him an opportunity to interpret a dream to get him out of this prison. But what we know is this…Joseph’s character was tested. The Joseph just before God took him out of prison was the picture of meekness.

After God had proven him, then he was raised to the highest office of the land of Egypt during his time. From being a slave and a prisoner to being Governor of Egypt… and we applaud him. God had tested him, and he had been shaped so that he had the character to contain real greatness.

But the Joseph who had the dream might not have been ready for such greatness…

And so, I learnt this: there is a temperamental kind of meekness that help us in life. But real meekness develops only after our character goes through fire…after God, our Master Potter, has shaped us into the vessel fit for His use.

The Bibles says in Psalms 24: 1-2,

The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;
for he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the waters…

Before He leads us into inheriting this earth, He has to shape us. So Peter tells us:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into…an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade… In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
[1Peter 1:3-7]

God will shape us, and He will help us to become overcomers…. If we will remain meek and humble before the Master Potter who allows all the circumstances in our life to shape us… like He did Moses… like He did Joseph. It may take 40 years…. But He can only used us when the character and meekness of Jesus can be revealed through us.

The only person who is truly meek is Jesus:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
(Mathew 11:28-30)

"Say to the Daughter of Zion,
`See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.' "
Matthew 21:5

So I have to keep studying Jesus to know what true meekness is…. I have to, if I want to have Him revealed in my life.