November 29, 2007
Got Meek?
by Laura MacCorkle, Crosswalk.com Senior Entertainment Editor
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5, NIV
In the early ‘90s, the “Got Milk?” advertising campaign was created to encourage the purchase of cow’s milk and increase sales after a twenty-year slump in the dairy industry.
Over the years, various celebrities, sports figures and other famous folk have been featured in these creative and compelling print ads—always with a “milk moustache” and always with the headline: Got Milk?
I got to thinking about these ads earlier this year when pondering what it meant to be meek, and who would star in a “Got Meek?” campaign if there were such a thing. Perhaps the acquisition of some meekness needed to happen in my life so that I could appear in one of these ads.
Prior to this, I had often thought someone who is meek must be very quiet and without opinion. Someone who would let anyone walk all over them. Someone with no backbone. Someone… unlike myself.
As I began seeing what the Scriptures had to say about it, I started realizing that this adjective was really describing a way of living and a state of mind—one that I was pretty sure I wasn’t doing and didn’t have. And pardon my poor grammar, but I didn’t “got meek.”
Jesus talks about those who are meek in the Beatitudes (part of the Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew). It’s one in a list of attributes or attitudes defining how believers ought to live. If you read through all twelve verses (Matthew 5:1-12), you’ll gulp, shake your head and admit that the standards are very high. How can anyone act in these ways all of the time? We can only live beatitude-ly with God’s help through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Those who are meek are those who are humble before God. Submissive. They have a proper appreciation of their place and understand how they relate to their Creator. Basically, they understand that the world does not revolve around them, but God. He is the general manager of their universe, and they are not.
If you’re like me, that’s a hard way to live. No sooner am I done singing “It’s all about you, Jesus,” in my weekly Sunday morning church service, then I’m already hitting the prideful potholes (“It’s all about me, Jesus”) on my way driving home.
Yes, it’s hard to “get” what being meek is all about. But the more time we spend knowing God and studying who He is and His precepts for our lives, the more we understand our human condition and how desperately we need to bend the knee and submit our will to that of our heavenly Father.
When you get all that, that’s when you’ve “got meek.”
Intersecting Faith & Life: Is there an area of your life that you have not submitted to the Lord? Pray that He would help you become meek, as you humble yourself and give whatever you’re holding onto so tightly to Him.
Further Reading