2-6: Eric = bridled stallion ???

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

I've always wondered at that particular beatitude. Why is meekness so valued by the Mighty One? And why shall the meek inherit the earth, anyway? I mean who wants dirt and weeds when Heaven awaits?

I think someone told me once that the word "meek" used there is connected to the same root word as used when speaking of the bit in a horse's mouth. You know, a horse is a beautiful, powerful creature. He could be wild, run free, do his own thing. But it's that little bit in his mouth that controls him. He, in a sense, lets the bit tell him where to go, what to do, even how to be. The best horses are so sensitive to their bits that they can turn on a dime when the rider does little more than flick his wrist one direction or another.In a sense, his sensitivity to the bit is in direct proportion to his usefulness to his rider.

In the same way, it's meekness, aka gentleness or humility, that lets me yield to God's direction, lets me feel the slightest tug one way or the other to God's direction. I think when I am feeling headstrong or self-sufficient I become an unbridled horse, finding myself often far off the right path, and far away from my master.

Something else. I'm so glad Jesus did not say, "Blessed are the weak". Had he said that, the image would not be of the bit in the mouth of a beautiful, capable, powerful animal. No, he would have been saying what you need to be is a broken down, lame nag. But I am not that, was not made to be that. I am a son of the Mighty One, and as such am a mighty, though necessarily bridled, stallion.

So it's the meek - those powerful ones bridled by humility - that are blessed.

The second part about inheriting the earth is next, but not tonight.

Eric