What should meekness look like in the life of a Christian in 2024?
And how might your life need to change in order to embrace it?
Meekness takes effort
Meekness isn’t a characteristic that comes naturally to human beings.
Some people’s nature is to be loud and proud and self-confident, eager to put themselves out there, make friends and take on responsibilities or positions of leadership. Typically people like that will be the ones who find it easiest to get ahead in this world, to make connections, to progress their careers, to seize hold of opportunities, to stand up for their interests, to communicate their ideas and to carve out a position for themselves.
That is not meekness.
Other people may have the opposite nature, perhaps one which is more timid or agreeable, ready to go along with other people’s ideas or agendas, lacking the confidence or the willingness to stand up for their own principles, doing what is asked of them and generally trying to avoid rocking the boat or causing any upset.
That is not meekness either, not as Jesus understood it.
What is meekness?
Meekness is an attitude of life that is centred in God, not in one’s own confidence and abilities or lack thereof. A meek person does not assert themselves or pursue their own interests at all costs, but at the same time does not cite their own inadequacies as a reason why something cannot be done in God’s service. A meek person is neither a weakling nor a doormat.
A meek person is prepared to make a stand for God’s principles and God’s ideals, if necessary at the cost of their own personal success, popularity or safety.
A meek person is willing to accept insults, abuse or threats without retaliation, not because they are too weak to fight back, but because they choose not to.
A meek person is willing to suffer the consequences of telling the truth or doing the right thing, even if they have the power or ability to escape those consequences.
A meek person is willing to learn from their mistakes and to be corrected by others when necessary, without taking constructive criticism as a personal attack.
A meek person is willing to put what God wants and what other people need ahead of what they themselves want or need.
The ultimate example of meekness was of course Jesus himself, and no more so than when he was in the garden of Gethsemane in prayer to his Father.
Not my will, but yours be done
Jesus had access to God’s divine power in a way nobody before him ever had, as well as an unparalleled understanding of God’s mind and intentions. He had more power and knowledge than any other human being in history.
He used that power, but never for himself. In the wilderness he rejected the temptations to feed himself, to make himself a celebrity and to conquer the world by force. These were all things he could easily have done – and not only could he have done them but the way the temptations are described shows he could easily have found some way to justify to himself that he was doing nothing wrong. For example:
“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ” (Matt 4:6)
Yet Jesus chose not to. He knew what God wanted him to do.
He used his knowledge of God’s mind and God’s word not only to counter temptation but to teach others, whether that meant instructing his followers or rebuking and correcting his opponents.
Yet Jesus never made it about himself. His objective was never to become a famous teacher or debater. He would often tell uninitiated people not to spread word about him and what he was doing. He didn’t want to become a celebrity surrounded by adoring fans. He wanted people to come to God, to know and love God, and to repent of their sins and be saved.
It would have been so incredibly easy for Jesus to have made his message all about himself – because to a certain extent it was – but he knew he wasn’t the ultimate focus of the message. He wasn’t an end in himself. He was the way for people to get to the ultimate focus and the end, namely his Father, God.
And in his last mortal hours in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus pleaded with his Father for some other way, some other path that people could take to reach God, one that didn’t require him to die in agony and humiliation while his opponents mocked and celebrated.
What about you?
As we’ve seen, meekness is generally not a characteristic which will enable you to get ahead in life.
On the other hand, nor does it involve you simply sitting back and passively accepting whatever life and other people might throw at you.
It involves you embodying that same principle which Jesus lived by: “Not my will but God’s be done.”
When you are faced with a decision, ask yourself which way God would want you to go. If you’re not sure, try to imagine Jesus in the same situation. Or imagine what you would do if Jesus was standing beside you at that very moment.
If you are faced with an opportunity in life, ask yourself to whom it would be more likely to bring honour and success: you or God? A potentially once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for career advancement or to travel the world or to pursue some other form of personal growth might seem too good to turn down, but you should always ask yourself questions such as: is this going to bring me closer to God? Will this mean spending more time on myself and less time on God or those who depend on me? What am I going to do with the knowledge or the money or the resources or the connections or the memories that I might gain from taking this opportunity?
Always be prepared to deny yourself. Always be aware of how incredibly easy it is for your mind to justify things that you really, really want to do.
Always be prepared to stand up for God’s principles, even if doing so is likely to get you into trouble. That could mean being prepared to stand up for your beliefs at work or at school or at home, or to challenge behaviour from colleagues or friends or family members which dishonours God.
It may mean being ready to challenge people within church if their professed beliefs or lifestyle are dishonouring God.
Challenging and correcting others should always be done in a spirit of meekness, keeping God at the centre and motivated by a desire to bring the other person closer to God. There will always be a temptation to “win” the argument and to make yourself look good, and it must be resisted.
Ultimately the meek person will seek out and do whatever will enable other people to come to God and be saved by him, regardless of personal cost.
That’s exactly what Jesus did throughout the last three and a half years of his mortal life.
Nihilist to Christian 