Meekness = Weakness?

Several years ago I had been thinking about God's definition of meekness, gentleness and humility as compared to the world's definition...weakness, weakness, and weakness. So, as I was thinking of examples that might be able to help me communicate what God's Word teaches on the subject my mind went back to a time when I was walking my new puppy named Bo…here’s how God showed me what humility feels like…

We had just gotten a puppy a few weeks prior to preparing for the gentleness message. After the Yankee game was over I took Bo outside in our yard to do his business, and like a good puppy he was right on time! I had some time to kill and wanted to walk off the bowl of ice cream I had just devoured, so I decided to take Bo for a walk around the block of my neighborhood.

I got about 10 minutes away from my house when Bo began to “circle the wagons” and prepare to unload…if you know what I mean. That was great and everything except for the fact that since he had just done the same thing ten minutes earlier in my yard, I didn’t think I needed to bring the “magic bag” to make it all disappear when he was done.

It was 10:30 at night, I didn’t have a bag, and Bo was doing his duty on someone’s yard. Many thoughts were going through mind…”should I leave it?” “Should I kick it in the road?” “Should I pick it up with my hands?” Uhhh what should I do?

I was pondering my next move, when all of a sudden I heard a deep, booming voice say “Don’t worry I’ll pick it up!” It wasn’t God; it was the guy who owned the house and yard that Bo had just defiled! He was sitting there on his front porch watching the whole thing. Then it hit me…”Brent you prayed that God would show you what gentleness and humility are all about, here you go.”

Well, after I gathered myself together from that incredible startling voice, I said “I’m sorry sir, I only live like 10 minutes from here, I’ll walk back, and get a bag and come right back.” So I grabbed Bo and headed home to get a bag. Then I walked back with Bo to the spot of the infraction and wouldn’t you know it, I couldn’t find it! I looked every where in that front yard…no poo could be found, I even tried to convince Bo to sniff it out, I mean after all he is a dog!

After quite a while of looking I had to go to the front porch and tell the owner that I couldn’t find it, and Bo couldn’t smell it so the removal was going to have to wait until morning when I could actually see what I was looking for…talk about humiliating!

As I was walking back home I was thinking about how gentleness and humility can be humiliating and not very popular character traits to aspire to if we look at them in our own definition. Then I thought about how Jesus emptied Himself to come to earth to give us the ultimate example of Power under Control, and it was starting to make a little more sense to me.

I then ended up where I should have started out when it comes to true power under control...Jesus. Phillipians 2 shows us what it's all about...

"Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. 

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion."

That doesn't sound like weakness to me...that's power under control!