"Meekness"--Authority

Meekness vs. Anger Meditation Commentary

Meekness is yielding my rights to God so He can demonstrate His peace and power through me.

“So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” —James 1:19-21

            America is a very “rights” driven society.   We talk a lot about our rights: as human beings, as Americans, as citizens, as a man or woman, as a certain ethnicity or race, as Christians, etc., the list goes on and on.   We also have this concept that we are our own authority.  Government is of the people, and nobody can tell us to do anything that we do not want to do.  We are constantly told to stand up for our rights.  Meekness, however, flies in the face of all that and is described here as yielding our rights to God.  Meekness is essential in submitting to any authorities.  We have to be willing to take ourselves down off the pedestal of our own authority, and yield our right to be right, our right to be happy and our right to do what we want, to someone else.  Otherwise, we are not under any authority other than our own.  The result when an “un-meek person” clashes with someone in authority usually has to do with an angry confrontation.  The Bible says, “Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well-advised is wisdom.” (Proverbs 13:10)  The ESV puts it this way: “By insolence comes nothing but strife, but with those who take advice is wisdom.”  Those who take advice could be summarized as those that are meek.  It is wise to be meek.  It is wise to let go of our own selfish pride and ‘rights’ so that we can yield to someone else in humility.  This can be easily seen in so many relationships.   A mom tells her teenage son not to listen to a certain CD, or a father tells a daughter not to dress a certain way, or whatever the case is, and the kid gets angry.  Why?  Because he or she believes he or she has a right to do these things and the parent is infringing on those rights.  A church has certain guidelines for how people on the platform should dress and a singer gets angry when the pastor tells her she cannot sing this service because her dress does not meet the guidelines.  She has the right to dress however she wants!  Nobody can tell her what to do. As students we have the choice to be meek or angry.  We can yield our ‘rights’ to do what we want, or we can get angry that we all of our rights are being challenged by the guidelines the faculty of our school sets in place.  These examples have all been with human authority figures but the biggest test comes to the Word of God, and to living for Him, and determining whether we still think we have the right to do certain things, and that God cannot tell us what to do.  We are told to receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save our souls.  If we do not have meekness, and a willingness to yield our rights, it is hard for us to see that God should have absolute control, and it makes sense that we yield.  Meekness requires that we submit to authority and yield to God, and angry confrontation becomes the norm if we do not.