A Soothing Strength
I help prepare the sermon notes each Sunday for our pastors, and when I received Dan’s notes this week, I was immediately intrigued by the topics and verses in his notes as they didn’t at all align with how I had always thought of meekness as the same as weakness and timidity.
Ashamedly, I had never really bothered to truly delve into the definition of this word, thus I thought to myself, “Better buckle up, buttercup, and listen closely, because I think you’re about to have your definition of meekness redefined.”
Dan discovered a definition of meekness that defined this quality as, “mildness of disposition or gentleness of spirit or treating another with tact, dignity, and respect.” Unfortunately, this quality is hard to find nowadays, even amongst Christians, yet we are called to utmost exhibit this quality. We love to toss our opinions at others as one tosses kindling onto a fire and watch it burn.
In today’s world, I have experienced and observed a lot of slander, hypocrisy, anger, unrest, blame, pride, lack of grace, and harming of others without regard. I never watch the news anymore as it’s stuffed with negativity and blame, and I have more often tended to shut off social media after running across so many comments that bash others.
Both platforms tend to throw my heart into a state of angst and dissatisfaction with this world and can lead to ungodly thoughts of anger and disgust towards those who were also created in God’s image, which can be hard to remember at times. It’s a strange and sad world to be living in as a young person.
I’m only 26 years old and have lived through a global pandemic, political unrest in a country riddled with injustice, heightened racial tensions leading to cities being burned and people being killed, economic collapse destroying the lives of many Americans, horrifyingly “justified” murder of babies, and legalized gay marriage, drugs, and praise for doing what is viewed as wrong in the Lord’s eyes.
Some of these events occurring are things one might think that would only be read about in history books or perhaps only encounter just a few of them in one’s life. Many folks, both younger and older, living in today’s world see these events as catalysts for opportunities to demand rights, demand justice, demand equality, and center the world around themselves at all costs, and it breaks my heart to see people behave in this manner. It seems it is their way of trying to gain control over situations and trying to steer life in the direction that they think it ought to go.
This is where the beauty of trusting Christ as a believer comes in. The deeper our trust is in God and the more we desire that His will be carried out no matter the circumstances, then the more we can focus on glorifying God through our responsibilities of loving God and loving others as stated in Matthew 22:36-39:
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Trust is the key to freedom from feeling the need to control. Let God be the author of life and let us seek ways to interject loving others gently and speaking truth with grace into the story.
Meekness has been redefined for me not as weakness or timidity, but instead as strength in taking the high road and exhibiting humility, gentleness, grace, and love. There are enough keyboard warriors, angry rioters, and blaming name-callers without us needing to add our voices and opinions to their already shouting voices and actions. A gentle word turns away wrath. What words can you say, and actions can you do that will rise above the turmoil, wrongdoing, and adversity to soothe the hearts and minds of those around you in your life?
“Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.” – Proverbs 16:24
~ Abi Gordon serves as the Production Coordinator at LIFE Fellowship.