Meekness is not a valued attribute today. This is evidenced in a classic scene in the movie “The Wizard of Oz.” Dorothy and her friends nervously approach the fear-inspiring wizard, named Oz. “Who are you?” Oz bellows, impatiently. “If you please," Dorothy begins. "I’m Dorothy, the small and meek." Dorothy was actually using the word meek as a synonym for weak; this is a common mistake. Jesus said in Matthew 5: “Blessed are the meek.” Many look at His words and conclude that God must therefore be in favor of a weak, cowardly doormat. But this is not Biblical meekness.
Meekness is best defined as power and strength under control. I love the way an article from got questions.org defines it, they state that meekness is “having the right or power to do something but refraining for the benefit of someone else” (I’ve included this article in a link below).
One example of meekness is Superman. In the series finale of the TV show “Justice League Unlimited” (an episode entitled “Destroyer”) Superman and the rest of the Justice League battle a mighty enemy. The villain has been flexing his muscle, and hope of victory seems to be fading, but Superman hasn’t pushed the panic button. He actually ends up sharing a moment of self-disclosure that we rarely see; he says these words to the villain:
“I’ve got a different problem. I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard. [I’m] always taking constant care not to break something, to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control, even for a moment, or someone could die. But you can take it, can’t you, big man? What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose and show you just how powerful I really am.” Needless to say, Superman backs up his words with action. He showcases his power, but interestingly, he also simultaneously showcases his meekness. By showing his power, he shows us that he controls his immense power exceptionally well.
There are examples of meekness in the Bible as well. Numbers 12:3 says that Moses was “very meek” (ESV), but clearly he wasn’t some spineless, weak, or cowering figure. David could have killed King Saul on multiple occasions, but he didn’t (1 Samuel 24 and 26). He had the power, but he chose not to use it; he meekly waited for God to deal with Saul in His timing. That it meekness.
But the greatest example of meekness is Jesus Christ. Jesus was so powerful that He resurrected a man who had been dead, He commanded the wind and storm to subside and they obeyed, and He gave sight to the blind, (to name just a few miracles). Yet this same man chose to submit to God’s plan and die a substitutionary death on a cross to pay the price of mankind’s sin. He could have escaped the torture of the cross; as He said to Peter in Garden of Gethsemane, “I could call down thousands of angels to get me out of this right now” (my paragraph of Matthew 26:53). But Jesus is meek. The same got questions.org article says, “Jesus had the right to do whatever He wanted, but, for our sake, He submitted to “death on a cross.” That is the ultimate in meekness.”
The takeaway of this for me is that if I want to be a Christ-like man, I must be growing in meekness. What are some examples of this in everyday life? For instance, someone says something that makes me angry. In that moment, I have the power to blast away at the person that angered me. But do I have the restraint, self-control, and meekness to hold back my angry reaction and choose instead to extend forgiveness to that person? Or you come home after a hard day at work, and your spouse gives you a rather lengthy “honey-do” list. Meekness says, “I have the right to look after myself exclusively, but I’m going to defer to my spouse's needs, even at the expense of my own.”
Kevin
http://www.gotquestions.org/blessed-are-the-meek.html
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