Blessed Are The Meek: For They Shall Inherit The Earth

Bienhome Muivah *

One of the keys to the Kingdom of God is MEEKNESS. But we do not want to be meek. We prefer to be like the little boy whose mother kept calling him, "My little lamb". Finally, he said, "Mother, I don't want to be your little lamb. I want to be your little tiger".

We like to think of ourselves as being courageous and strong. We sing with inspiration, "The Son of God goes forth to war, a kindly crown to gain", but meekness does not appeal to us. We want to be conquerors, and meekness sounds too much like surrender. Meekness does mean surrender, but not surrender to men around us, not surrender to our selves, not surrender to the circumstances of our lives.

For the true meaning of meekness, turn to the Thirty-seventh Psalm. There you find it stated, "The meek shall inherit the earth." The Hebrew word which is translated "meek" really means "to be molded". The psalmist says, "Fret not thyself because of evil evil-doers", do not be envious of the prosperity of the wicked. Instead, "commit thy way unto the Lord". That is, let yourself become a putty in God's hand, be molded by Him, yield your life to the purposes of God, and eventually real success will be your reward.

Jesus lifted up that phrase of the psalmist and made it one of the Beatitudes, a key to God's Kingdom. The New Testament writers used the Greek word praos, which we translate as "meek". Actually, it means to be controlled. It means submission to the divine plan of God.

The laws of God are already established when we are born. His ways are fixed. We have a choice in that we can accept God's way and live according to His law, or we can rebel against Him. But we cannot change what He has done. For example, the world is round and the sky is blue. Suppose you don't like round worlds and blue skies. There is nothing you can do about it.

Also did God make the laws of the universe, which are just as unchangeable as is the universe itself. They are the seasons. The farmer learns the laws of the seasons and becomes governed by them. He plants his crop when it should be planted and thus he reaps when it should be reaping. For him to rebel and plant out of season does not change the laws of God, it means only the failure of his crop. For the farmer, meekness means planting when he should plant. It means submission to God's laws.

So with life. God has His will, and man has his will. Man has the choice of being meek or of being self-willed. He can say with Christ, "Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42), or man can say, "I will do as I please". The Psalmist says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). On the other hand, to fail to become molded or controlled by God's will is to destroy ourselves.

In the last chapter of the book of Job is a thrilling statement. Job's life had both sunshine and shadows. He had his successes and also his defeats. He had faith in God, yet there were times of doubt. It seemed that Job might "curse God", as he was advised to do. But in the end his faith triumphs and Jobs says, "I know that you can do all things (42:2).

There are times when, with our limited vision, it seems that God's way is not the best way. We want material success on earth, we want happiness in our lives and peace in our hearts. If we believed, really believed, God would give us what we so much want; we would gladly be meek, that is, be willing to be molded and controlled by God. But it wasn't until he became an old man that Job knew without doubt that God is never defeated. How wonderful it is to learn that lesson while there is still much of life to be lived.

There is the voice of duty and there is the voice of inclination, both within us demanding to be heard. We struggle to decide, and the struggle squanders our powers. We become weakened and exhausted. But when one decides to do the will of God, day by day, as best he understands it, the conflict is resolved.

Such a decision takes all of the dread out of tomorrow. The wise man of the Bible tells us, "In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight (Proverb 3:6).

The very act of accepting the Will of God for our life today places the responsibility of what will happen tomorrow on us. So we do not worry about what the result will be. There is a wonderful peace in leaving the results in his hands. As you study the lives of God-molded people down through the centuries you realize that every time God did "Go through". In the long run, God is never defeated we think of how Mahatma Gandhi left Sabarmati on March 12, 1930, to go on the 'Salt March'. He proposed to march to the sea, there make salt, which was a government monopoly, and thus precipitate a crisis. He said he would not return until he had gained independence for India.

It seemed absurd. A little man in a loin cloth and with a bamboo walking stick going out to do battle against the greatest empire the world had ever known. But seventeen years later the little man had won. Gandhi's power lay in the fact that his life was committed, to the will of God as he understood it. Thus committed, he was totally without fear. And his freedom from fear struck fear into the heart of the British Empire and it dared not destroy him.

"Blessed are the meek", said Jesus. Those who surrender to God possess God. We are told, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it" (Psalm 24:1). Thus, possessing God, the meek do also "inherit the earth".

Meekness is not weakness!