Realizing I Already Have It All

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth." (Matthew 5:5)
This Beatitude was a little hard for me today. Meek is a hard word to define. It is one of those words that you know what it means but it is hard to find other words to describe it. At least it was for me. I looked in the Webster dictionary and the definitions there weren’t too helpful. I looked in the thesaurus and that wording helped me out quite a bit. The Webster thesaurus says meek “is not having or showing any feelings of superiority, self-assertiveness, or showiness.”It is very hard in today’s society to live a life successfully without drawing attention to yourself when you do something well. A reason that a lot of the people at work that are successful and have risen to the top rapidly is not only because they do their job well, but also because they let anyone who will listen (at least those who have influence) know that they do their job well. It is thought that those who don’t speak up are often those who get passed over for the good things like promotions. I know I have been one of those people who have been passed over. I thought I would take the high road and let my job performance and my merit speak for themselves when it came time to look for someone who would be good to take the step to the next level. It didn’t work that way. The people who were getting promoted were the ones who were in the boss' face and ear all the time speaking of how great their work was. It was irritating and definitely disheartening to see them get promoted over me since I knew my work ethic and the quality of my work was far better than theirs. I admit that I took it upon myself to be one of those people. Though I did get promoted I can honestly say that it personally hit my integrity. I didn’t feel so good when I did receive the promotion because I felt like I had to say “look at me, look what I can do” to get that promotion.“Blessed are the meek…” What does that mean? The NKJV says that these meek people will inherit the earth. The NLT calls these meek people “gentle and lowly” and it says that the whole earth will belong to them. It wasn’t until I read the Message translation that I got a glimpse as to what the verse meant. The TMNT says “You’re blessed when you are content with who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that cant be bought.”Being content with who you are is the key to this principle of discipleship. This content feeling needs to encompass you as a whole entity (physical, mental and spiritual). When we want to be something that we are not we completely miss the point of this part of Jesus’ teaching. We are basically telling the Maker that we could have done a better job in creating ourselves. When we accept ourselves as ideal in all areas of our lives then we make room in our lives to accept all that Christ has planned for us. We make time to focus on learning from His teachings instead of focusing our time and energies on improving what He has created.When I say that we should see ourselves as in a spiritual ideal position, I don’t mean to say that we should rest or remain stagnant in our discipleship ignorance; but rather we should accept (and not be ashamed of) the fact that we have not arrived in terms of biblical knowledge and the discipleship walk we have been called to. Having understood and accepted our spiritual ignorance makes it easier for us to place ourselves under submission to the One who can teach us what we need to learn.If I am content with who I am and with what I have after I have shifted my focus from trying to achieve and gain earthly possessions and recognition, then I will realize that I have all that I need and I am all that I want to be. The only way this vision of myself will change is when God calls me to change it—and then I will still be content with myself. This shift of focus from the worldly perspective of myself to the spiritual perspective of being content is what will help me see that I am “the proud owner of everything that cant be bought"—my happiness, my salvation, my relationship with the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I will have inherited the earth, because everything that I have will be exactly what I need and I will be content with that.Being meek is being in a one on one, singular relationship with God. I don’t have to look to be promoted, nor do I have to look to see who is being promoted. Its just me and Him. No one else matters in this relationship and I do not have to place myself in the spectrum in comparison to anyone else in the Body of Christ or otherwise.Father help me to focus on our relationship. I want to remain content with where I am—in a position of constant learning, constant discipleship; ready to be used by you whenever and however you see fit. Amen.