MEEKNESS: (praotes)

EVERY writer or speaker I've ever read or heard on the subject of Biblical meekness has had to stress that this form of meekness is not weakness.

We don’t use the word meek very much in general conversation, and when we do it's rarely a compliment. What we're usually implying is that the meek person is a bit wishy-washy, doesn't have much force of character.

But here is meekness as a part of the fruit of the Spirit. Something is definitely wrong here. Alarm bells should be ringing. It cannot be one of the goals of believers to develop a lack of personality! Are we really expected to make weakness of character one of our aims? That's what you'd think if you took meekness at face value. But, as with all the aspects of the fruit, there is more to being meek than our general understanding of the word allows.

Praotes, the Greek for meekness in Galatians 5:23, doesn't signify timidity, it means CONTROLLED STRENGTH. We have it when we have great strength but contain it. It's when you know you have a lot in your favour but don't flaunt it. It's having power without abusing it. In fact, as you'll see, true meekness is possible only for believers. It arises from the strength and security we have from trusting God.

William Barclay in New Testament Words says that in classical Greek praotes means gentle when applied to a thing (like a breeze), and mild or gracious when applied to a person. Barclay says the word "has a caress in it". It might aptly be used to describe a gentle giant like the English Shire horse which perfectly embodies the twin characteristics of strength and gentleness: it can pull a heavy plough or cart with little effort, and yet be docile enough to allow a youngster to enjoy a ride. It has strength under control. Believers with meekness have a strong character, not a weak one. They have great strength and power as children of God, and yet conduct themselves in a kindly, gracious manner. They have much to boast about, but they are restrained.

Some people are naturally timid. They are inherently shy and reticent. And you might think that such people have a head start on the rest of us when it comes to developing this aspect of the fruit. But that's not the case. The timid personality is a fearful personality, and fear has nothing to do with biblical meekness (unless it's a reverential fear of God. Timidity is a fear of man).

Even the unbelieving man of the world who has achieved much power and yet is still humble does not have the sort of meekness we're talking about here. Such characters may be naturally meek, or they may have learned meekness as a social ornament, but they are not spiritually meek. If they want to be truly meek, and to please God, they must become meek in the Biblical sense.

The same is true of believers. Natural meekness doesn't qualify as a fruit of the Spirit. The meekness we seek is not a natural timidity of character, which we might mistakenly pride ourselves is biblical meekness, but a product of the Spirit in our character. It grows within as a result of our continued delight and meditation in the Word of God.

God and meekness

The Almighty Himself is the greatest example of meekness. It may be difficult for you to attach a quality like meekness to the character of Almighty God, but it's self-evident that He must have it in superabundance. As soon as we appreciate that meekness is strength under control we can understand how great the meekness of God is. Try for a moment to imagine the omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence and glory of God. It's an impossible task but try anyway! His presence is so unimaginably awesome that out of consideration for our welfare He has never allowed us to see Him face to face. Should the power and glory of God be allowed to fill this corner of the universe unchecked, we'd not survive the experience. All would be blinding, penetrating light and power against which nothing could stand.

Paul writing to Timothy described God as "dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen" (1 Tim.6:16).

God's dealings with man have been carried out indirectly through His messengers the angels. But the presence of an angel could be terrifying when it reflected only a fraction of the Divine power. When the people of Israel waited at the foot of Mount Sinai while Moses received the ten commandments, they witnessed something of the awful majesty of God: "...and when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die" (Exod.20:19).

God is so far beyond us in power and glory that the gap is immeasurable. We might well ask with the Psalmist: "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" (Psalm 8:3,4). Why should God bother with us at all? And yet He does, as the astonished Psalmist goes on to say.

The fact that the great Creator and Sustainer of all things has anything at all to do with you and me, let alone loves us, and steers us towards a salvation in which we will ultimately be with Him—that is meekness unrivalled on His part. The control of His strength in dealing with us might be compared to the entire electrical energy output of the United States transformed down to a half volt output so as not to blow the bulb on a mini flashlight!

He speaks to us through His Word. He guides us by His unseen Hand of providence. He sent His own Son to die for us to open up a way to His presence. He hears our prayers. He asks us to cast all our cares on Him because He cares for us. All this is more than any of us could expect or deserve. Only a God who is love would ever be like this. And a prominent ingredient in the love God is, is meekness: controlled strength.

The meekness of Christ

When Christ was apprehended on the night of his betrayal, he had to stop Peter trying to defend him with a sword. Christ pointed out to Peter that God could send twelve legions of angels to his aid if it were necessary (Matt.26:52,53).

One of Christ's temptations in the wilderness was the appealing suggestion that he should demonstrate his great power to the people (and the religious leaders in particular) by throwing himself down from the highest pinnacle of the temple. According to a prophecy in Psalm 91 the angels would then catch Jesus and put him gently on the ground. "They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone" (Psalm 91:12). A spectacular demonstration of power was available to him.

Furthermore, on at least three occasions an angry mob threatened to kill Jesus (Luke 4:29,30, John 8:59 & 10:39), but he slipped away quietly and unseen instead of using his power to deal with them. Surely these were occasions when the angels did fulfil their prophesied role of Christ's protectors, ushering him to safety.

In all the above cases, Jesus resisted the temptation to show his power. It must have been severely tempting to show off in all these situations rather than be meek. Christ always had the great power that was available to him firmly under control. He never abused it by using it for selfish purposes. It's one of the things which mark him out as a very special person.

How many people given the power of the Spirit in such measure would have been able to handle it wisely and unselfishly? Christ is the only man in history who could ever have been trusted with so much power. Because Christ was perfectly meek.

The author H. G. Wells once wrote a story called The Man Who Could Work Miracles. It wasn't about Christ; it was about an ordinary man given extraordinary powers by the angels for a brief period to test how he would use them. The story concluded with the whole world in disarray and on the brink of destruction in the hands of this well-meaning though incapable man. I doubt if you or I would have fared any better. Wells' moral was that ordinary people like you and me can't handle extraordinary powers. It takes an extraordinary person.

Jesus never forgot that the power he had was not his power. He knew that of himself he could do nothing (John 5:30). In this knowledge lay the great secret of his meekness. And in this knowledge lies the secret of ours, too. Any power we have is derivative, and whatever we attempt to do in our own strength will cancel the quality of meekness in our character. Jesus always knew and acknowledged that the source of his power was his Father. At the miracle of the raising of Lazarus, Jesus said, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me." He said it aloud on that occasion for the benefit of those who stood by. Usually he gave thanks quietly, mentally, to God. He always acknowledged the real power source. He was, and still is, a man of true Biblical meekness, of controlled strength.

The prophet Zechariah, who foretold Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, described him as "just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass" (Zech.9:9). That event underscores the meekness of Jesus. It was a masterpiece of understated power. The heir to the whole world had his 'triumphal entry' not riding a dashing black charger, nor with a battalion of ceremonially dressed troops marching before and after, nor with fanfares or other orchestrated pomp. He merely rode alone and on an ass through the gates of Jerusalem to the cheers of many who would soon be calling for his blood.

Just think of the sort of show Christ could have put on—or the magnificence his Father in heaven could have lent to the occasion. It could have surpassed anything ever witnessed. Instead, this event, and indeed the whole life of Christ, from his birth in the stable to his crucifixion like a common criminal, was characterised by meekness. He was the lamb of God.

We should appreciate, in passing, though, that he will return soon as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, to deal unflinchingly with all opposition to the Kingdom of God he comes to establish. His power may be under control, but that doesn't mean he'll never exercise it fully when the occasion demands. There is a time and a place for such use. The eviction of the unscrupulous traders from the Temple precincts was one: the eviction of the incorrigibly ungodly from the Kingdom of God will be another.

If you should ever wonder whether these seemingly uncharacteristic actions from the "gentle Jesus meek and mild" of the Christmas carol, or Christ's scathing denounce-ments of the Scribes and Pharisees, demonstrate a lack of meekness on his part, then you have misunderstood Biblical meekness and mistaken it for timidity. To be Biblically meek means you don't act in your own strength. It is to lean upon the power of God, and to be unselfish in the use of that power. Whenever Christ apparently stepped out of his characteristic meekness it was without exception not for himself, always as the perfect instrument of God's will. Even Christ's displays of strength were moments of submission.

The meekness of man

From the meekness of God and the meekness of Christ we now take a long, long drop down the scale to the meekness of man. Isn't it remarkable that the Almighty God and the perfect Christ exhibit meekness, while feeble and flawed mankind is so self-important! This is probably one of the reasons why they are Almighty and perfect and we are feeble and flawed!

We have nothing of ourselves to commend us. I'm reminded of something Winston Churchill once said when told that his political rival, Mr. Clement Attlee, was a modest man. Churchill responded typically, "He has much to be modest about." We all have 'much to be modest about.' Yet we flaunt and fancy ourselves, and are so proud of our puny achievements. We are so concerned and consumed with ourselves. Can we wonder that one of the things God hates most is "a proud look" (Prov.6:17), and that "Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord" (Prov.16:5)? To which Jesus' words can be added: "For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" (Luke 14:11).

If only more people were strong enough to be meek! But we so want to appear strong. We admire self-reliance and assertiveness in others and we want it for ourselves. It's far more appealing than meekness, which although it embodies true strength of character might easily be mistaken for weakness. Even if we're not strong on the inside we like to appear it on the outside.

The greatest barrier to a believer's having Biblical meekness is the fear that it will appear to others as natural weakness. We don't like to be thought weak. We fear people will take advantage of us, that we'll get continually sidelined in life, we'll be the sort of people others take little notice of. Fears like these generate a need to assert ourselves, to make our mark with people.

So we worry and work for that promotion at the office, try and attract the boss's attention to our good work, instead of simply working "as unto the Lord" and being content with that. To be a Biblically meek believer is to be able to see beyond the boss you are apparently working for to the God you are actually working for. You are not out to please the apparent boss but God. You know that your future as an employee depends not on what the boss thinks or decides, but upon what God will allow. The boss, of course, doesn't do too badly out of this arrangement.

When Jesus said before Pilate, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above" (John 19:11), he wasn't boasting, he was meekly stating the truth of the situation. Pilate had seriously misjudged it. He had asked Jesus whether he realized that as Governor of Judea he had the power of life and death over Jesus. What foolishness that was! Jesus saw the truth of the matter and where the real power lay.

In our own smaller way, what Jesus said to Pilate is true of all believers, whatever the circumstances. Nothing and no-one has any power over a believer apart from what God will permit. The Governor of Judea had no real power over Jesus, though he thought he had. Believers' governors in their working environment have no real power over them, only what is granted them.

God-reliance

A Biblically meek person realizes that the affairs of his or her life are in no-one's hands but God's. Meekness is God-reliance, not self reliance. It involves the rejection of self-reliance—or indeed the rejection of reliance upon any other human. Even the help we get from other people is indirect help from God.

The result of God-reliance is not to make us weak, isolated and dependent (which is how meekness might be viewed), but strong, connected and, in a sense, independent. God-reliance brings independence because through it we are connected to the loving care of God. Insofar as we practise God-reliance, we free ourselves from the cares of this life. We no longer have to worry where the next meal is coming from, the next pair of shoes, or whether we'll be evicted from our house, whether another war will start, whether people like you or not, or anything else that's bothering you at the moment.

"The Truth shall make you free," but....

"The truth shall make you free" (John 8:32) is a breathtakingly simple and direct statement about what happens for us when we follow Christ. The Jews who were present when Jesus said it misunderstood him entirely. They had a knack of doing that, and probably sometimes it was wilful. They complained they were free men already. As descendants of Abraham they were never in bondage to any man, they said. Which was blatant self-deception: the Jews at that time were under Roman governorship, and before that had been a captive nation in both Egypt and Babylon.

What Jesus meant when he said "the truth shall make you free" was that the Truth, once known and followed, will make a person free from sin and all its attendant anxieties. Not in the sense that we never sin again, but free from what might be called the 'system' of sin. When we serve (a meek thing to do, you'll notice) Christ and God we cease to serve sin and ourselves. By being baptised into Christ we give notice that we're under new management.

The Scriptures also speak of being baptised into Christ as shifting from being in Adam to being in Christ (1 Cor.15). Everybody is automatically born into the family of Adam; we have no choice in the matter, we're all his descendants. We all inherit Adam's sin-cursed and death-bound nature. But when we make the choice to become believers we become in Christ, related to an immortal being. If we remain on the spiritual path then immortality is our revised destination.

God takes a different view of us when we become in Christ. He becomes a loving Father. We begin trying to serve Him rather than ourselves. We move from being slaves to sin, to being sons and daughters of God: a shift from slavery to a harsh tyrant to adoption by a loving parent. So, "the truth shall make you free"—but only if you're meek. Only if you surrender your self-reliance and self-concern, and replace them with God-reliance and concern about Him. Only then will living the Truth be a truly liberating experience. It frees us from uncertainty, doubt and fear, and all other major and minor anxieties. It removes insecurity from our thinking. When we trust God as much as He wants us to, and invites us to; there is no place for fear and insecurity. We are free.

"This is all very easy to say," you may be thinking, "but I'm a believer and I still worry and feel insecure much of the time." Fine. I hear what you're saying. But what does that tell you? What you're saying is actually a comment about yourself; it's not a valid criticism of the Truth, which you are in effect complaining of as having 'let you down' in some way because you don't experience it as liberating. It tells you two things about yourself.

Firstly—it tells you that you still have to develop more of this aspect of the fruit of the Spirit called meekness. You're not relying on God enough. You can lean on Him a lot more than you do. (And always remember you won't have meekness fully until Christ returns to give believers complete freedom from the pull of sin. There will always be lapses while you're a spiritual being dragging round a mortal body. Though in a sense you can have perfect meekness even now. Paradoxically, if you're meek enough to recognise you'll never be meek enough, you'll be meek enough. Don't burn your brain out on that one.)

Secondly—it's a sad fact that some believers are set free of the problems of living in the world only to replace them with a whole new set of problems related to living in the Truth! These are usually problems related to being and doing which we discussed earlier. The problem is that if we're not careful we can build up a huge weight of anxiety about our standing and performance before God. We didn't have this when we were in the world, and we might begin to think that we were better off before we believed.

The people of Israel were like that after the exodus from Egypt. They ceased to trust in the care of God, and as a result wandered forty years in the wilderness. They even wished themselves back in Egypt. Mercifully most believers don't get so far as to wish themselves back in the world, but if trying to live the Truth is making them anxious they might from time to time hanker after some of the peace of mind they had then. They might almost be jealous of those who don't have the great responsibility (burden?) of being in the Truth.

The only reason we make ourselves anxious over life in the Truth (and it's the same reason Israel made themselves anxious over it) is this: we think we've got to do it all ourselves. Israel saw "giants in the land" of promise, and they couldn't cope with the idea of evicting them themselves. But they didn't have to do it themselves! God was going to do it through them. They should have had the faith to realize that. We often get anxious over the giants in our own landscape—problems we seem powerless to resolve, things we cannot cope with—when in reality we don't have to cope with them ourselves. God will deal with them through us, if we let Him. If, instead of bemoaning our lot, we become meek enough to trust in His power, He will do one of two things for us: He will either bring into our life whatever we need to resolve the problem, or He will give us the strength to live with it. One of these two will happen once we submit to God and cease imagining that we have to solve all of life's problems ourselves. Becoming a believer is more than being baptised, living by a set of rules, and hoping at last to be in the Kingdom of God: it's placing ourselves unreservedly in God's hands to the exclusion of all doubt, insecurity and fear. The psychologists' couches would all be empty, as would their wallets, if everyone discovered and lived real Christianity!

Perhaps we never thought of our anxieties and fears as being a result of self-reliance, but that's exactly what they are. We might even have thought of our anxieties as meekness, because being anxious make us somewhat timorous. And by being anxious we think we are not being self-assertive—we are dutifully worrying. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our anxieties are the product of trying to depend upon ourselves, they are self-reliance. They are the product of 'What-can-I-do?' thinking, or 'If-only-I'd-done...' thinking, or 'I-can't-handle-it' thinking. It may not sound like self-reliance to you, but, believe me, if you started relying on God, you wouldn't feel like this any more!

Been there, seen that, done that....

Self-reliance causes anxiety and a spurious kind of meekness, but at the other end of the scale it also causes a brashness which could never be mistaken for meekness. How awful it is when almost every semblance of meekness is missing from a person's character! And how dreadful, too, that we don't notice ourselves slipping into pretentiousness!

We've all met people who need to tell us within two minutes of meeting them what a good job they have, what a nice house in such a good neighbourhood, and what an exotic holiday they've just had, or are about to have. Whatever you've done they've done that, been there, seen that—only better, of course!

The biblically meek person may also have 'been there, seen that, done that'—twice round—but you wouldn't know it, at least not from him or her. You might learn it from someone else about them, or in answer to a direct question, or if it's relevant to what you need to know about them. Otherwise you wouldn't know. Such people are not out to impress you. They don't feel the need, because they are free of insecurity.

Bragging, even in a minor way, is invariably a sign of insecurity. And something the biblically meek don't have is insecurity. The person who needs to impress you is not happy with who he is, or the way he thinks he appears to others. Deep down he believes he is not likeable or lovable for himself and he will only be liked for what he owns or does or knows. It's a sad reflection of his own distorted view of the people around him. He's envious of almost everybody, and evaluates them only by what they own or do. Hence he believes he is judged by the same criteria. As the saying goes: "Deep down he's really quite superficial."

To a degree we're all a little like this. We all worry to some extent what people think of us. We want to project a good image, a better one than the one we have of ourselves. We all like to be liked. To the extent, though, that we develop meekness we will eradicate the need to impress others. We must be independent of the good opinion of others. We care about our reputation, of course, and we try to keep it untarnished, but we should be aware that ultimately it's not in our hands. We have as many reputations as people who know us. We can agonise over that to no profit, or we can take the sensible approach: what you think of me is none of my business. The only One a believer really wants to impress is God—and paradoxically, if he knows God well enough, he will never despair that he knows he never will impress Him.

Virtual reality

Meekness embraces a deep trust in God. It's more than just a belief that He is looking after you in your humdrum daily round; it's a knowing that he is. If you don't see the difference, then consider that if you can ride a bike, you don't just believe you can, you know you can. You don't get into the saddle debating inwardly your belief that you can do this; you just know you can, it's a fact of your life. When you have a deep reliance upon God you don't honestly mind what other people think about you, or what you do or say, or even look like. Your only concern is what God thinks, and you can be happy in the knowledge that He never misunderstands or misinterprets you. When you have genuine meekness you see no point in inventing a false reality for yourself, hiding away from who you really are. Your first priority is what God thinks, and you know you can neither hoodwink nor impress Him.

We hear much of 'virtual reality' these days. Virtual reality is a computer-generated world in which games are played or skills learned. But the human brain has its own far superior capacity for virtual reality—and it got there a long time before the computer. So many people live in worlds of their own creation, self-centred and not God-centred. Those who understand the Truth should perhaps be incredulous that there are still people living today who believe the world revolves around people. It's like believing that the sun revolves around the earth. One day the spiritual Galileos will be seen to have been right all along.

In spite of all appearances, to be meek is not to make yourself less of a person than you might have been if you were self-assertive; it is to make yourself a person with a firm grasp on reality. The irony is, you don't have to tell yourself and other people lies about yourself, because the truth will serve you better. The truth will set you free. The Biblically meek personality is no less dynamic than it might otherwise have been. It has more real power then the brash personality: it has the power of God behind it. It may lack self-publicity and self-confidence, but all the while it radiates a quiet God-confidence it will never be bland. Self-generated confidence is shallow and limited; Bible-generated confidence runs deep and is lasting.

Anyone being told they will need to become meek to be a Christian will probably see it as a negative factor. But how wrong they'd be! After all, why choose to depend on yourself, on your own wisdom and strength, when you can depend upon God and His? It's hardly a difficult choice! As the Apostle Paul discovered, "For when I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Cor.12:10). When he was compelled to rely upon God he was at his strongest. Therefore he "took pleasure", he said, in "infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake." Seems perverse, but it's not really hard to understand. Like the Apostle Paul, we can so easily get caught up in what we're doing, what we have, etc. and forget God's hand in it all. When we are humbled by events, we are brought back to reality and discover the true strength of meekness. Life will continue to humble us all the while we are in the Truth because God is concerned that we should learn to live in His strength, not our own. He is concerned that we live in the real world and not as fully paid-up members of a spiritual flat-earth society.

What God and man can do together

A question that often troubles believers when it comes to this business of relying not on ourselves but upon God is, how much? How far should we go? The reason for the question is easy to see, because surely there has to be a practical limit to what we should leave to God. There is a difference between trusting God that everything will work out right and leaving absolutely everything to Him, expecting to do nothing for ourselves.

I heard a story on the radio some time ago that made me angry at first. It was about a man who bought a derelict plot of land. It was smothered in weeds and strewn with the rubbish that people had tipped on it over the years. The man worked long and hard to turn the plot into a beautiful garden. One day a friend called by and looked over the smart new fence to admire the lovely flowers and shrubs. He called out to the man in the garden, "Isn't it wonderful what God and man can do together!" To which the man replied, "You should have seen it when God had it on His own."

As I say, when I first heard that story it angered me. The story was intended, I thought, as an atheistic jibe at religion. I believed it was meant to illustrate that God really has no part in our affairs and that left to Him nothing would ever happen. But then I realized that what it actually illustrates is human short-sightedness. What the man of the story overlooked is that without God there would have been no plot of land, no raw materials for the man to work with, no food and drink to give him the energy for work. Without God there would have been no opportunity, and, oh yes... no man.

God does not need man's help, but men and women are blessed when they make themselves the willing tools for God's work.

We cannot be totally passive. There is some merit in the idea of "let go and let God", when for some reason we simply cannot handle what's going on in our life. There is a right time for that attitude. It's a healthy recognition that we are powerless and must trust to God for an answer. But it's no good as a way of life! Our trust in God doesn't mean we leave it all to Him, always; it means we live and work in a faithful manner and leave the outcome to Him. Ours is not to worry but to trust. The outcome of what we do doesn't ultimately depend on our own skill and performance. "A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps" (Prov.16:9).

We have free will over what we do and how we go about it, how great or little effort we put into it, but thankfully the results and effects (assuming we pray about such things) are not left to chance. In a sense there are no such things as failure or success for a believer. He or she must know that all the outcomes of life are simply either lessons of encouragement or chastening from a loving God. If only we could always recognise them as such and remember that this is how life works.

Above the entrance to the Centre Court at the Wimbledon All England Tennis Club are two lines from Rudyard Kipling's famous poem If: "If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors both the same...." Kipling had insight enough to recognise what many believers sometimes miss: that triumph and disaster are impostors, they are imaginary—if only we are sufficiently meek and God-reliant to know it!

We work, we plan, we scheme, but we don't trust to ourselves for the outcome. We do what we can, we live in a conscientious manner, and leave the results to God. That's the way of meekness. As the wise man of Ecclesiastes found: "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time [God's time] and chance [happenings at God's disposal—check the use of the word in a concordance] happeneth to them all" (Ecc.9:11). Life doesn't always proceed in an orderly fashion with everything working out exactly as it should. And if you don't know that, you can't be more than a few months old! Logically the swift will win the race, but not always; the strong will win the battle, but not always; skilful men will be rewarded, but not always. The outcome of everything is in God's hands and He may decide the best result is not what we expect. The Biblically meek person recognises this and always leaves the result to God, knowing that, for him, it will be good, no matter how it might appear to him or anybody else. Nothing in the life of a believer is left to chance. Events are not random for him or her.

God willing

The practice of saying and writing "God willing" is common among believers, and even sometimes among unbelievers. Saying it is almost superfluous if you live with the understanding that everything in life is God willing. But the practice has Scriptural backing. It serves to remove presumption from our day-to-day planning. The problem with such an oft-repeated phrase is that it can lose its force for those who use it. It can be trotted out habitually without conviction—even superstitiously, as if to ward off evil.

It's rather like the phrase "God bless". In business I once spoke on the telephone regularly with a man who had the habit of signing off with "God bless". When I asked him if he was religious he was amazed. "Whatever gave you that impression?" he said. I can't think. Whatever did? Saying "God bless" was just a habit to which he never gave any thought.

The use of "God willing" can be equally without thought, even among believers. But never if meekness is sufficiently developed.

Non-believers and believers alike have taken to using the insupportable alternative "all being well". They'll say something like, "I'm going to the market on Tuesday, all being well." It doesn't mean "God willing"—at least I can't convince myself it does. It's just a way of saying it without the possible embarrassment of saying the word 'God' in this Godless society. And what it actually means, if you pause to think about it, is "if nothing untoward happens". "All being well" actually casts Divine providence in a rather sinister role. It's like saying, "Things will all be well if they work out according to my plans, but if God intervenes things won't all be well!"

When a believer uses "God willing" in a conscious, not purely habitual, way he gladly acknowledges God's benevolent hand in his life. In meekness he submits to that hand, knowing that his plans will prosper or be cancelled by a caring higher power who has far more idea of what is good for him than he does. But if he uses "all being well" he gives the impression that if his plans don't work out as he'd hoped then all is not well. God's hand is portrayed as an unwelcome intrusion in his life.

When James exhorted us to say "If the Lord wills" he was thinking primarily of the believers of his day who were business people.

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit,' whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.' But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil." (Jas.4:13-16 NKJV).

It is in our business lives that we are most likely to leave God out of account. Ironically this is where we most need Him. It's generally through our work that God provides what we need. It is an obvious channel of His goodness and care.

Yet it's in our work that we are more likely to forget that outcome depends on God. We may think that we have our job and get our salary because we are so good at what we do, so clever, so qualified, so useful to others. And our business planning, as in James's day, probably doesn't take God into account. Okay, we don't expect to hear a "God willing" at a business meeting (though it's not unknown!), or around the boardroom table if we're in company management, but the thought can at least be in our heart, and expressed if appropriate.

Whatever line of work you're in, white collar, blue collar, or donkey jacket, employed or self-employed, you must know that you are working "as to the Lord". And even if you don't work in the accepted sense of having salaried employment, if you're a home-maker, or retired or unemployed, you can still work "as to the Lord" in whatever you do. James doesn't confine the use of "if the Lord wills" to our business life; he extends it to all life: "if the Lord wills we shall live and do this or that."

Even in the making of simple daily appointments and arrangements, whether it be for the dentist, a cup of coffee with a friend, or a business meeting, the thought "God willing" should be implicit. And it will be if you have cultivated the quality of meekness in your character. You don't need to keep obsessively repeating the phrase at every turn like a mantra; you need only to live with a spirit of meekness. When you have meekness you know that God is in control, and all the outcomes of your life are in His good hands. You are God-reliant.

A life of meekness

Biblical meekness is a valuable asset in every facet of life. Without this special aspect, love is certainly incomplete. Just a glance at some of the sixteen occasions where praotes and its variants occur in Scripture should be enough to convince you of its value.

It is linked with love, with glorying in the Lord (not ourselves), with walking worthily, with being one of the elect of God, with fleeing the love of money and covetousness, with Christ himself, with inheriting the Kingdom of God, and with beauty and wisdom.

In addition to these, three times meekness is related to an absence of striving. The Biblically meek have no desire for strife, and will not cause it. They do not strive in the sense of being 'pushy': they are not ' brawlers' in either their actions or words.

Also the preaching of the meek is done with gentleness. They don't ride rough-shod over the opinions of others. Moreover their attempts to instruct believers they consider to be in error, in either doctrine or practice, are carried out in gentleness. How easy it is to lose meekness when dealing with what we perceive to be error among our fellows! We might protest that our direct, no-nonsense approach is motivated by love, but if love lacks the vital element of meekness it ceases to be love. In such situations we have to make sure we're not acting from our own strength (championing our own cause) and being self-assertive, rather than proceeding gently and in God's strength. Don't make a similar mistake to the man who bought the plot of land: don't imagine that, but for you, the brotherhood would be in an awful state!

The meek shall inherit the earth

We cannot leave the subject of meekness without reference to the most famous passage of all on the subject: "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." Instantly recognizable, I would say, even in these days of unread Bibles, as one of the Beatitudes. They are the opening words of Jesus' sermon on the mount (Matt.5:1-12).

Interestingly, there are nine Beatitudes, as there are nine items listed as the fruit of the Spirit. I'm sure that here we have another appearance of the fruit of the Spirit, dressed in different clothes. The nine Beatitudes don't describe nine different types of people—the poor in spirit, the meek, those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, etc.—as if there are nine distinct groups of believers who are acceptable to God! The Beatitudes describe the different qualities of character that together make the whole character of a saint (the eight aspects that equal love). This is how I suggest the two lists line up:

Some of the connections are less obvious than others (linking the mourners with faith, for instance, but the believer who mourns must do so with faith, seeing the unseen hand of God in whatever occurs: faith must be a quality that arises from mourning, or the believer may become an unbeliever!) It might be argued that some could be better assigned. But I believe the comparison does show a general correspondence between the two lists.

As I mentioned back in Chapter Six, there are a number of appearances in the Scriptures of lists that equate with the fruit of the Spirit. The Beatitudes is one that could easily go unnoticed. I'm sure many do. So far I've not noticed one in the Old Testament, and it would give me great delight to find one. I'm sure they're there.

What the merging of the Beatitudes with the fruit of the Spirit adds up to is this:

Blessed is the man or woman who has love in all its aspects: theirs is the kingdom of heaven; they shall be comforted; they shall inherit the earth; they shall be filled with righteousness; they shall obtain mercy; they shall see God; they shall be called the children of God; and great is their reward in heaven.

The proud, ungodly, unruly, self-reliant of this present world scoff at the idea of the meek ever inheriting the earth. Nothing could be more ridiculous to them. They fail to see where true strength lies. It lies in submission to God. Ultimately all those who won't submit to Him will simply be removed from the earth. Psalm 37 makes that abundantly plain. The meek shall then inherit the earth, "and delight themselves in the abundance of peace"—to complete the quotation Christ used from Psalm 37 (v11).

Christ will be more than pleased to welcome those who are meek (and who have, of course, the other aspects of love), into his kingdom. They will be the right people to inhabit the paradise of God. You'll recall that the fruit of the Spirit is about being and not doing: it's about who we are before what we do. The elements of the fruit are all aspects of the character that we need to please Christ—they are things we must be. And they are, as I've said, healthy and correct attitudes to life.

In fact, if I may be so bold as to finish this chapter on the worst pun you may hear for some time—they are all be-attitudes! I'll now escape quickly to the next chapter.