Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. – Matthew 5:5
Meek means humble by choice. Meekness is best expressed in the life of Jesus. The best expression of the concept in words we find in 1 Peter 5:6 Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, and in due time He will exalt you. Let’s examine the verse exegetically.
Humble. The literal meaning of the original from which the word derives is dirt. It depicts the most base level of form and position possible. Imagine the soldier doing the pit crawl under barbed wire. There you have it, the image for humble.
Yourselves. Someone can be humbled by an outside force, but God calls for it to be voluntary, that we voluntarily take the position ourselves. Actually, He’s calling us to be humble of heart. It’s possible to be humbled outwardly and still stubbornly maintain a heart of pride. Most important is that our attitudes involve humility, regardless of the externals.
Under the mighty hand of God. God’s mighty hand over us means, first, that he protects us. Humility in the Lord is the safest possible scenario for us. Becoming antsy and squirming our way into a seemingly higher position only opens us up to danger. Secondly, God’s protective hand serves as a barrier that keeps us close to Him where we can remain in increasing intimacy with Him and hear His voice that speaks life.
In due time. Who gets to decide when something is due? The one in authority. The teacher, the mortgage company, electric company and the judge. The highest authority in the universe, under whose protective and directive hand we wait, is the one who sets the due date for our graduation from the low to the high. His judgment is perfect and His timing perfectly trustworthy.
He will. God calls us to patiently humble ourselves, but He’s the one who does the lifting. Troubles ensues when we try to take His job and expect Him to do ours. And it’s meaningful the verb tense. He will…when?…He will…why hasn’t He?…He will…Why can’t I?…He will. Be patient, because He will.
Exalt you. God will, according to His will, lift us to the place He’s planned since the beginning for us to be. He exalts us for two purposes.
First, He exalts us to be honored. We don’t deserve it, but He bestows it upon us anyway. He didn’t lift David from the sheep pastures to the throne of His chosen people because he deserved it; He chose him based on His own divine desire to bless him. No person deserved the lifting to Israel’s throne, but God lifted them anyway. We won’t be exalted because of our qualifications, but because of His. Jesus’s exaltation is the only deserving one. Yet ours is promised.
The second reason for God’s exaltation of people is that He has work for us to do. In Joshua 7 we see what sometimes happens when we humble ourselves. Joshua and the elders of Israel were distraught from the defeat of their people, so they fell on their faces before the presence of God all day long.
After Joshua cried out from his troubled heart, God uttered two words: Get up. The Lord had some work for them to do that would eradicate the source of their distress. We can’t forget that what may follow our time of humility may be, as He lifts us up, a work order from the Lord.