Momentum: Pursuing God’s Blessings Through The BeatitudesSample

Meekness is Different from Weakness

“Blessed are the meek…” Matthew 5:5

I wonder what comes to your mind when you hear the word “meek.” A person who is soft-spoken? Someone with a limp handshake? Maybe someone who’s a pushover?

Charles Wesley wrote a hymn for children with these words: “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild…” But when you put meek and mild together, it gives the impression of weakness. For guys who like to watch football, this doesn’t seem like the kind of thing we’d want to go after.

Matthew Henry pointed out in his book, The Quest for Meekness and Quietness of Spirit, that in Latin a meek man was called mansuetus. Manu means “hand” and assuetus means “used to.” So meekness means being “used to the hand.” This refers to “taming… creatures wild by nature.”

God compares his own people to a wild donkey and a restless camel (Jeremiah 2:23-24). Henry draws this conclusion:

“Man’s corrupt nature has made him like a wild donkey… but the grace of meekness, when that gets dominion in the soul, alters the temper of it, brings it to hand, and submits it to management.”

A horse that has not yet been broken bucks and kicks; it resists the bit and the bridle. But when it gets used to the hand, the horse has poise. The animal is at peace and it’s altogether different.

By nature all of us are like the unbroken horse. We resist God’s hand. We kick out against him. As long as we are fighting God, we cannot be at peace. And as long as we are at war within ourselves, the turmoil will spill over onto other people.

For further reading, see Jeremiah 2:23-24