Leadership Thought: Why Being  Called Meek is a Compliment.

 Dear Friends.

There is a time when if someone were to call me meek, I would have been insulted. To me, meekness was synonymous with weakness. A person who was meek was a person who had no backbone, who was timid, spiritless, subdued and weak. But I now know that this is not the case for biblically the word for meekness means something completely different than most of us understand it. Didn’t Jesus affirm meekness when he said “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth?

To be called meek is not an insult, but a wonderful compliment. Meekness is a Greek word which refers "strength under control." It is harnessed energy. It describes the victorious horse in the race. What makes the horse a winner is his total obedience to the jockey’s wishes. The horse had not used his self-will, but instead had been obedient and submissive to the will of the jockey. He didn’t have to submit. Instead he could have exercised his power in any way he chose. However, he chose to exercise it by being submissive.

The poet Carl Sandberg described Abraham Lincoln as a man of “velvet steel.” He was a man of strength, but a man whose strength was under control. No one could ever accuse Moses of being weak and timid, yet God identified him as the meekest man on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3).

Jesus was the most courageous man to ever walk among men, and yet He said of Himself, “I am meek and lowly in heart.” Both Moses and Jesus faced difficult and dangerous situations, but they triumphed through them because they exercised power that was under control.

“There is nothing wrong with losing my temper,”  a lady once told the evangelist, Billy Sunday. “I blow up, and then it is all over with.” “So does a shotgun,” the evangelist replied, “but look at the damage that is left behind.

“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger (Proverbs 15:1). What do we often do when a harsh word is spoken to us? We usually shout louder. Arguments generally continue when each person fails to exercise meekness, or strength under control. They last because both people involved keep yelling. If only one person would exercise meekness, or “strength under control.”  by closing his/her mouth and ceasing to yell, the other person will  usually run out of steam like a car running out of gas.

Let us pray today for a special measure of meekness as we relate to others, for as Timothy writes, “And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him, he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:24-25).

Yours in faith,

Tom

P.S. “Meekness may be the most counter-cultural act any Christian can do in our angry, polarized world.” Rich Hansen, a former pastoral associate and presently a ministry life coach