Blessed are the Meek

"Meekness is not and easy grace. Indeed, no grace comes easily. It is the heavenly life into which we are being fashioned, and nothing less than a moral and spiritual revolution will produce in us the heavenly qualities. The old must die that the new may live.  Spiritual graces are not merely amiable traits of nature trained and cultivated into gentleness - they are transformations wrought by the divine Spirit."

"Meekness is a submissive spirit toward God, and a patient, quiet, forgiving spirit toward men. We should be meek toward God. We should accept whatever God sends, without complaint, without a rebellious word or feeling. It is easy to find reasons why we should do this. He is our Father, and loves us with a love which we never can doubt. Nothing but good can ever come from Him to us.  Whatever the form of the providence may be, we know it enfolds a blessing.”

“We are confident, too, of God’s wisdom. He makes no mistakes in any of His dealings with us. When our ways are set aside for His, we know it is because His are better. Dr. Payson was asked, when enduring great bodily affliction, if he could see any particular reason for the dispensation. “No,” he replied, “but I am as well satisfied as if I could see ten thousand reasons; God’s will is the very perfection of all reason.”

“When we think of these great truths concerning God, our heart should be quieted in any experience of pain or sorrow, or in any mystery of darkness, and it should appear reasonable to us to wait and suffer in patience, and with trustful, songful acquiescence. Why should the frail creature doubt the wisdom and the goodness of the strong Creator? Why should the child distrust the love and wisdom of the Father?”

“The captive bird which flies violently against the wires of its cage, trying to escape, only beats and bruises its own breast and wings, and at the end of its frantic struggles is still captive. Alike hurtful to one’s self and unavailing are all resisting of God’s will.”

“Wiser far is the bird which, when it finds itself shut in the cage, unable to escape, begins to sing, filling its prison with sweet music.  It spares itself all hurt.  It shows a spirit of trust and confidence.  Then even in its captivity it scatters benedictions all about it in its notes of cheerful song.”

“This illustrates the meekness with which God’s children should accept even the most painful events of life.  Their faith should never fail. They should look upon the inevitable, not as a decree of stern fate to which they can only submit, but as a revealing of the Father’s will, and therefore, something holy and sacred, something, too, in which a thousand blessings of love are folded up.”

“Resistance to God’s will gets nothing for its striving. A man cannot contend with God and hope to overcome omnipotence. The struggling bird has only hurts and bruises as the result of his struggles. It has broken no wire of its prison. It has loosened no chain. It has opened no door. But the bird which cheerfully accepts its bondage and sings in its prison is no longer a captive. It is as free as if it were soaring in mid-air. All the world belongs to it. Acquiescence in any suffering already has the victory over the suffering. The Christian who rejoices in the midst of pain and trial overcomes all pain and trial.”

Miller, J. R. The Master's Blesseds. Swengel: Reiner Publications, 1977. 34-36. Print.

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

“The deepest happiness is not that which has never suffered, but that which has passed through the experience of sorrow and has been comforted.”

“In the kingdom of heaven those are favored ones who are called to suffer. Instead of being unfortunate, they are the blessed.”

“Sorrow in itself is not a blessing. Sickness, pain, affliction, trial are not favors in themselves. These experiences can be nothing else but hard and bitter.  It is only in their fruits that the blessing comes.”

“We should never know God’s marvelous comfort if we never had sorrow.”

“God may not spare His children the grief, because there is a blessing in it, either for themselves or for others, but if they must drink the cup, He would strengthen them for it.  In one of the Psalms there is a word which is full of rich suggestion.  We are bidden to cast all our burden upon the Lord.  In the margin, however, is the word gift, as another reading, - “Cast thy gift upon the Lord.”  So our burden is God’s gift to us. This is true whatever the burden may be – duty, sorrow, pain, loss, care. Being God’s gift, there must be a blessing in it, something good, something we could not miss without sore loss.”

“This then is the blessing which comes to those who mourn – they receive the strength of God to sustain them in their sorrow.  The burden may not be lightened, but it is really an answer to the heart’s cry for help if new strength is given. Then the sufferer is enabled to sing, - the sorrow is changed to joy.”

Miller, J. R. The Master's Blesseds. Swengel: Reiner Publications, 1977. 25-30. Print.