Meek, Meek, Meek, Meek

Meekness is one of those words that we, in modern American English, have a difficult time defining. If we are able to define it all, it is usually by using negative descriptors: mild, wimpy, pushover, etc. In the Bible, Jesus is described as being meek. Often times, we have a difficult time thinking of meekness as an admirable trait.

I've been reading a book called "The Pursuit of God" by A.W. Tozer. In this book, Tozer speaks about meekness in a much more Biblical way, and I thought that it was valuable enough to share. He contrasts Biblical meekness with the world's way of trying to prove oneself as being valuable, as being important, as being "enough." Here is a short excerpt:

The labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed....The heart's fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest. Continue this fight through the years and the burden will become intolerable. Yet the sons of the earth are carrying this burden continually, challenging every word spoken against them, cringing under every criticism, smarting under each fancied slight, tossing sleepless if another is preferred before them.

Such a burden as this is not necessary to bear. Jesus calls us to rest, and meekness is His method. The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort. He develops toward himself a kindly sense of humor and learns to say, "Oh, so you have been overlooked? They have placed someone else before you? They have whispered that you are pretty small stuff after all? And now you feel hurt because the world is saying about you the very things you have been saying about yourself...Come on, humble yourself, and cease to care what men think."

The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything...He knows that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. He rests perfectly content to allow God to place His own values."