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.