“Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5
Hmmm. God has been teaching me a lesson. Bit by bit. And now I’m
ready to say something about it. Several situations have happened, to me and to
others close to me, where I realised that to get ahead by normal standards, you
have to push yourself into the limelight for recognition from people.
As I was thinking on what has been happening, I remembered the ‘blessed
are” scriptures in the bible. Society has taught us that to advance in our
careers, in our hobbies and even in ministry, we have to take the proverbial
bull by the horns, be forceful, loud, and proclaim from the rooftops who we are
and what we can do. Not meek. It is generally seen as a weakness to be meek and
to put others before yourself. After all, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there
right?
Well, as Christians, we know that are Perfect Example was the
meekest man of all. So why aren’t Christians as meek as He is? For a start, we
live in the world. We are surrounded by principles that oppose the Word of God.
We are in this world, but not of it. We also grapple with our human nature
pretty much every day. Well I know I do. It doesn’t come naturally to be
self-sacrificing.
Despite dictionary definitions such as ‘timid’ and ‘spineless’, the
Hebrew meaning of ‘meek’ is ‘humble’. To be humble is to have a low estimate of
one’s importance. In light of Matthew 5:5, blessed are the humble. This means
that the un-humble are the opposite of blessed lol. So the meek inherit the
earth? Shouldn’t it be the self-assured, aggressive go-getters of life?
1 Corinthians 1:27 says: “ But God chose what the
world considers nonsense to put wise people to shame. God chose what the world
considers weak to put what is strong to shame.” It may not seem like the logical mindset, but we know that God's way is ultimately the best.
A prideful heart can easily rob us of our blessings. We may feel
that we are entitled to a better position in church or at work because of our ever-so-many
gifts and oh-so-wonderful talents. What does a person have that they weren’t
given? The Lord who has given us the abilities we have, will showcase them when
and how He deems fit. Our part is to remain humble.
I pray that God will give us the grace to be meek so that we may
inherit the earth; for Him.
