This is a beautiful selection from The Pursuit of God. Enjoy.
Chapter 9 : Meekness and RestBlessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
A fairly accurate description of the human race might be furnished one
unacquainted with it by taking the Beatitudes, turning them wrong
side out and saying, `Here is your human race.' For the exact
opposite of the virtues in the Beatitudes are the very qualities which
distinguish human life and conduct.
In the world of men we find nothing approaching the virtues of which
Jesus spoke in the opening words of the famous Sermon on the
Mount. Instead of poverty of spirit we find the rankest kind of pride;
instead of mourners we find pleasure seekers; instead of meekness,
arrogance; instead of hunger after righteousness we hear men
saying, `I am rich and increased with goods and have need of
nothing'; instead of mercy we find cruelty; instead of purity of heart,
corrupt imaginings; instead of peacemakers we find men
quarrelsome and resentful; instead of rejoicing in mistreatment we
find them fighting back with every weapon at their command. Of this
kind of moral stuff civilized society is composed.
The atmosphere is charged with it; we breathe it with every breath
and drink it with our mother's milk. Culture and education refine
these things slightly but leave them basically untouched. A whole
world of literature has been created to justify this kind of life as the
only norm alone. And this is the more to be wondered at seeing that
these are the evils which make life the bitter struggle it is for all of
us. All our heartaches and a great many of our physical ills spring
directly out of our sins. Pride, arrogance, resentfulness, evil
imaginings, malice, greed: these are the sources of more human
pain than all the diseases that ever afflicted mortal flesh.
Into a world like this the sound of Jesus' words comes wonderful and
strange, a visitation from above. It is well that He spoke, for no one
else could have done it as well; and it is good that we listen. His
words are the essence of truth. He is not offering an opinion; Jesus
never uttered opinions. He never guessed; He knew, and He
knows. His words are not as Solomon's were, the sum of sound
wisdom or the results of keen observation. He spoke out of the
fulness of His Godhead, and His words are very Truth itself. He is
the only one who could say `blessed' with complete authority, for He
is the Blessed One come from the world above to confer
blessedness upon mankind. And His words were supported by
deeds mightier than any performed on this earth by any other man.
It is wisdom for us to listen.
As was often so with Jesus, He used this word `meek' in a brief
crisp sentence, and not till some time later did He go on to explain it.
In the same book of Matthew He tells us more about it and applies it
to our lives. `Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and
learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find
rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is
light.' (Mat 11:28-30) Here we have two things standing in contrast to
each other, a burden and a rest. The burden is not a local one, peculiar to
those first hearers, but one which is borne by the whole human race. It
consists not of political oppression or poverty or hard work. It is far
deeper than that. It is felt by the rich as well as the poor for it is
something from which wealth and idleness can never deliver us.
The burden borne by mankind is a heavy and a crushing thing. The
word Jesus used means a load carried or toil borne to the point of
exhaustion. Rest is simply release from that burden. It is not
something we do, it is what comes to us when we cease to do. His
own meekness, that is the rest.
Let us examine our burden. It is altogether an interior one. It attacks
the heart and the mind and reaches the body only from within. First,
there is the burden of pride. The labor of self-love is a heavy one
indeed. Think for yourself whether much of your sorrow has not
arisen from someone speaking slightingly of you. As long as you set
yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal there will be
those who will delight to offer affront to your idol. How then can you
hope to have inward peace? The heart's fierce effort to protect itself
from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of
friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest. Continue this
fight through the years and the burden will become intolerable.
Yet the sons of earth are carrying this burden continually,
challenging every word spoken against them, cringing under every
criticism, smarting under each fancied slight, tossing sleepless if
another is preferred before them. Such a burden as this is not
necessary to bear. Jesus calls us to His rest, and meekness is His
method. The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for
he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth
the effort. He develops toward himself a kindly sense of humor and
learns to say, `Oh, so you have been overlooked? They have placed
someone else before you? They have whispered that you are pretty
small stuff after all? And now you feel hurt because the world is
saying about you the very things you have been saying about
yourself? Only yesterday you were telling God that you were
nothing, a mere worm of the dust. Where is your consistency?
Come on, humble yourself, and cease to care what men think.'
The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his
own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion
and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about
himself. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows
he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but
paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of
God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God,
everything. That is his motto. He knows well that the world will
never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. He
rests perfectly content to allow God to place His own values. He will
be patient to wait for the day when everything will get its own price
tag and real worth will come into its own. Then the righteous shall
shine forth in the Kingdom of their Father. He is willing to wait for
that day.
In the meantime he will have attained a place of soul rest. As he
walks on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him. The
old struggle to defend himself is over. He has found the peace which
meekness brings.
Then also he will get deliverance from the burden of pretense.
By this I mean not hypocrisy, but the common human desire to put
the best foot forward and hide from the world our real inward
poverty. For sin has played many evil tricks upon us, and one has
been the infusing into us a false sense of shame. There is hardly a
man or woman who dares to be just what he or she is without
doctoring up the impression. The fear of being found out gnaws like
rodents within their hearts. The man of culture is haunted by the
fear that he will some day come upon a man more cultured than
himself. The learned man fears to meet a man more learned than
he. The rich man sweats under the fear that his clothes or his car or
his house will sometime be made to look cheap by comparison with
those of another rich man. So-called `society' runs by a motivation
not higher than this, and the poorer classes on their level are little
better.
Let no one smile this off. These burdens are real, and little by little
they kill the victims of this evil and unnatural way of life. And the
psychology created by years of this kind of thing makes true
meekness seem as unreal as a dream, as aloof as a star. To all the
victims of the gnawing disease Jesus says, `Ye must become as
little children.' For little children do not compare; they receive direct
enjoyment from what they have without relating it to something else
or someone else. Only as they get older and sin begins to stir within
their hearts do jealousy and envy appear. Then they are unable to
enjoy what they have if someone else has something larger or
better. At that early age does the galling burden come down upon
their tender souls, and it never leaves them till Jesus sets them free.
Another source of burden is artificialy. I am sure that most
people live in secret fear that some day they will be careless and by
chance an enemy or friend will be allowed to peep into their poor
empty souls. So they are never relaxed. Bright people are tense
and alert in fear that they may be trapped into saying something
common or stupid. Traveled people are afraid that they may meet
some Marco Polo who is able to describe some remote place where
they have never been.
This unnatural condition is part of our sad heritage of sin, but in our
day it is aggravated by our whole way of life. Advertising is largely
based upon this habit of pretense. `Courses' are offered in this or
that field of human learning frankly appealing to the victim's desire
to shine at a party. Books are sold, clothes and cosmetics are
peddled, by playing continually upon this desire to appear what we
are not. Artificiality is one curse that will drop away the moment we
kneel at Jesus' feet and surrender ourselves to His meekness. Then
we will not care what people think of us so long as God is pleased.
Then what we are will be everything; what we appear will take
its place far down the scale of interest for us. Apart from sin we have
nothing of which to be ashamed. Only an evil desire to shine makes
us want to appear other than we are.
The heart of the world is breaking under this load of pride and
pretense. There is no release from our burden apart from the
meekness of Christ. Good keen reasoning may help slightly, but so
strong is this vice that if we push it down one place it will come up
somewhere else. To men and women everywhere Jesus says,
`Come unto me, and I will give you rest.' The rest He offers | 
