Meekness

Meekness in our society is often looked at as weakness. Meekness means: humbly patient or docile, as under provocation from others; enduring injury with patience and without resentment; showing patience and humility; long-suffering. Yet, in our society, we often praise the opposite. Those that are rudely forceful and “tough” are viewed highly, as men aspire to be like them. Being forceful in conversation is especially noticeable.

I’m reading through the gospels right now and I have greatly noticed Jesus’ character and personality. If anyone had a reason to act tough or have an “I rule the world” type of attitude, it was Jesus. He could have called legions down and simply killed the Pharisees. In fact, He probably could have simply spoken and He could have killed them.

But He didn’t.

The Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians wanted to kill Him (Mark 3:6; Matt: 26:3-4; Luke 22:2), and His townsmen probably thought He was crazy (Mark 6:3). I can only imagine what His younger brothers thought of Him! Yet, He was always patient, caring, gentle, and meek.

Meekness is looked at as a weakness because we assume that if someone won’t fight us, or return insult, it’s because they’re “weak” and don’t have the “guts” to do it, which is incorrect. It is so much easier to simply let your emotions/sinful man take over and respond rudely and/or get in a fight. Controlling those emotions and not responding angrily, is much harder.

Jesus is the perfect example of this. All through the Gospels, you can just hear and feel His peace and gentleness as He reacted to every situation kindly. In fact, we might even think He responds too kindly to the religious leaders.

Have you ever thought of how you would have reacted if the religious leaders had been talking to you instead of Jesus? I’m afraid my answer probably would have been rather sarcastic. It is very hard to remain loving and kind when people keep trying to get you in trouble and just want to cause you harm. In fact, when people want to hurt us, it can make us quite angry. Yet, these people didn’t only want to entrap Jesus with His own words, they wanted to kill Him, they were so angry with Him.

I kinda doubt that any of us have ever wanted to literally kill someone we were so angry. We get so mad that we wish the person hadn’t been born, or at least that we were never going to talk to them again (a personal favorite of mine when I was 9ish), but after a day, we wonder, what had made us so angry in the first place? Yet, these people wanted to kill him month after month.

So, if we’re supposed to be like Jesus, aren’t we supposed to acting the same way?

One of my friends shared this verse with me: But thou, O man of God, flee these things {the love of money, etc}; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:11-12

Interesting enough, as my friend pointed it out, is that we’re supposed to be meek and fight the good fight of faith. We’re not supposed to be simply staying at home and being meek with those around us, we’re supposed to be meek when we’re out and about. Which means when the waitress spills our drinks; someone gets mad at us for witnessing to them; a car cuts us off on the road; or the cashier over-charges us, we’re supposed to respond meekly.  

A tall order sometimes, but, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!”