"Blessed Are the Meek" , book continuation

The Healing Power of the Beatitudes

Eight Steps to Wholeness

Chapter 3

Mt. 5:5

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

OK. “Meek” This sounds a little better. A little less painful. Maybe,… but it is certainly not descriptive of how most of us are,….or even want to be.

Who wants to be meek? Milquetoast? Doormat? Roadkill? Well, of course on one very profound level, this is not at all what “meek” means. But on another it does mean that kind of humility. But it is humility from strength, from choice, from sacrifice.

Not finished yet

The meek person realizes the meaning of PBPWMGINFWMY: please be patient with me, God is not finished with me yet.

Romans 4:17New International Version (NIV)

17 As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.”[a] He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not [bold print mine]

The meek person realizes it is God, who brought the universe into existence, who called and enabled Abraham to be the father of the Jewish race, and God who will call into existence what is needed in his own life. Psychology talks about self-fulfilling prophecy. The Christian in meekness lives out not only self-fulfilling prophecy: what we sow we also reap, or karma, if you will.  But also God-fulfilling prophecy lived out intertwined with self-fulfilling prophecy. [Philippians 4:13New International Version (NIV)13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.]

Or maybe a few different translations of Hebrews 11:1 explains the hope we have that God is working in us:

Heb 11:1: (CLV)  Now faith is an assumption of what is being expected, a conviction concerning matters which are not being observed;"

(LITV-TSP)  Now faith is the substantiation of things having been hoped, the evidence of things not having been seen.

Or God’s provision:

Is 61:10: I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

To be meek means we are able to see our imperfections but know that our imperfections are in process. We can have a strong self-concept even when we see that we are not perfect (done) yet. We know that God has brought the “dead cells to life”…but they were really, actually “dead” before he started. He sees us clothed “with the garment of salvation” and “the robe of righteousness”, even though they started, and to some extent still, are “filthy rags”.