by Kat Silverglate ©2024

A travelling salesman does his rounds through old country roads. The rarity of an unannounced visitor makes each house call that much more memorable to the visiting vendor. At this unforgettable home, an old man sways in his rocker while his faithful hound dog seems to melt into the wood slats on the porch. Long before the salesman reaches the front door, the hound’s moaning eclipses all the other sounds one might expect from such a scene -- tractors grinding, crickets chirping, birds singing, gravel crunching under the weight of a car.      

He can’t help but blow past the obligatory introduction to the question begging for air.

“What’s wrong with your dog sir?”

“You mean old Grumbles here? Oh, he’s just fine.”

“So why does he appear to be groaning in pain?” the stranger asks insistently.

“Because his hip is resting on a rusty nail,” the old man replies.

“Why doesn’t he move to a different spot then?”

The dog-father glances down at his beloved pup:

“Well sir, I imagine when he decides that it hurts enough, he’ll pick himself up and find a better spot.”

This creative rendition of an old folk tale [original author unknown] pretty much nails the predicament Abigial Wallace found herself in during the winter of 2014. Only she wasn’t sitting on a nail; she was on a treadmill – both literally and figuratively.

For more than a decade, she had been faithfully doing the same exercise routine working the same muscle group. She’d step on her wound-licking-mill and do her miles running through a laundry-list of injustices and hurts that gradually carved an ever-deeper rut of bitterness into the groove of her one ridiculous life.

“They were mostly things I said silently to myself. Things I rehearsed over and over in my mind. ‘Why didn’t my friends stick up for me when we faced that challenge?’ ‘People I thought were my friends felt like enemies in that season. They broke my heart. Why?’ Or, I’d repeatedly revisit the injustice of my infertility. I’d get yet another baby shower invite and say to myself, ‘Oh great, another baby shower. Really? Why not me?’ I constantly found myself wanting to twist my story arc back to fit my script. The more I recycled my hurts, the madder I got. I started to resent anybody and anything that blocked my way to my plans.”

Oh sure, Abigail had attempted to move away from the rusty nail of resentment. Grounded in her faith and raised in a Christian home by her salt of the earth, stable, no pretense parents [one a pastor, the other a teacher], she knew that freedom from the prison of self-pity was possible. She prayed to forgive those who wronged her. Prayed for endurance in her afflictions. Prayed for patience in her trials. All the while, she held the posture of an exile huffing and puffing through the wilderness, inwardly grumbling about circumstances she couldn’t force under her control.  

“The day I finally had my breakthrough, I was starved for peace. I was literally on my treadmill in our basement listening to a podcast.”

For those of you who have had that repetitive dream that you’ve accidentally stumbled upon a hidden door to an undiscovered room in your house, you’ll understand what this moment was like for Abigail.

“The podcaster started talking about meekness. How culture sees it as a form of weakness, but God sees it as power under control. How God intends to transform us in meekness if we will only see His good hand in all things. Here I was focusing on forgiveness and endurance and patience. All great things. But never once did I consider how God might have actually allowed these circumstances in my life to mold me? Because He loves me? It was a lightning bolt moment. I had to slow the treadmill to a near stop so I could catch my breath. Not from running faster. But from the realization that meekness was exactly what I lacked.”

For the next several months, she feasted on what felt like an abandoned treasure left intentionally for her to plunder. She read and listened to every book, sermon, article, podcast, blog or treatise she could find on meekness. She started to record what she now calls “meek gems” and wrote piles of notes about what she was learning.

“You want to know what this time was like for me? I was never really tuned in to the type of cars people drove. Then I got a Honda Accord. Once I bought that car, I tuned in. I noticed Accords everywhere. That’s what it was like for me with meekness. The more I learned, the more I saw aspects of it in almost everything. Each citing was like a redemptive truth assuring me that my hardships weren’t accidental, meaningless or wasted. Infertility and estrangement persisted, but meekness was a balm that allowed me to grow, not merely go, through them.”

Her studies taught her that meekness is massively misunderstood by the world and often poorly taught or emphasized by the church. As one scholar cited by Abigail observes, this may be because the Greek word often translated as meek is one of “the most untranslatable of words in the New Testament.” While gentleness and humility are first cousins to meekness, they aren’t exactly the same. These words have opposites that help us define what they are not. Gentleness is the pole of harshness; humility the pole of pride. But meekness has a different kind of pole. A. W. Pink, another scholar cited by Wallace, describes meekness as “the opposite of self-will toward God, and of ill-will toward men.” The heart of meekness bristles at the “my will be done” predicament that has led us to sit repeatedly on a nail that cannot crucify what desperately needs to die – our pride. Meekness is growing accustomed to the hand of God on our life.

Abigail’s notes eventually developed into a Bible study. As she watched contentment and peace gradually displace resentment and self-pity in the group working through the material, she knew she needed to explore more. So deeply did Abigail plunge into the sea of meekness, she emerged a decade later with a full-length book on the topic: Meek Not Weak; A 12-Week Guide to the Gentle Strength of Meekness. When asked why she wrote it, she quips:

I’m just one beggar showing others where the bread is. Meekness has completely transformed the way I perceive trials. Recovering alcoholics write for alcoholics desperate for help. Trim figures who’ve lost half their body weight compel trim wannabes. Former over spenders forced into bankruptcy are mad about budgets. Healed hoarders could wax endlessly about custom closets. That’s meekness and me. I’m a meek geek.

Many things make Abigail’s Meek Tweak particularly compelling for those who hunger for deeper peace in the Lord. The first may make you laugh out loud; and the second drop to your knees. Let’s start with God’s sense of humor in Abigail’s growth. A decade ago, if you’d asked anybody that really knew her if she’d eventually become a spokeswoman on meekness, they’d probably fall on the floor laughing.

In her own words,

“I’m the anti-type for meek. I tested ‘way-A’ on the high school personality test, which my coach assured me was a type that made great athletes because of temperaments characterized by excessive ambition, competitiveness, impatience and the need for control. I always thought birth order explained my take charge personality, but untamed, I became a headstrong, stubborn, resistant, resentful, take-matters-into-my-own-hands, impatient woman toward anything that got in the way of my good and pleasing perfect-in-my-eyes will. A deep understanding and embrace of meekness transformed me. And it started with God piercing my heart. If something like meekness matters so much to God but mattered nothing to me, how could I continue to ignore it?”

But isn’t that the way of God? Using the foolish things in the world to confound the wise? Making the least likely candidate the first choice? Seeing what others can’t see -- a woman’s heart ravenously hungry for the things of God and a God lavish in His response to her relentless quest for peace?

The drop to your knee’s moment came for me when Abigail looked back through her life with a deeper understanding of meekness. With meek lenses.

Abigail’s description of her personal “Up Club” isn’t for the faint of heart.

“My best friends don’t indulge me with toxic empathy or sympathy. They don’t numb me with Hopium [hope in earthly wishes as supreme]. They ground me in the truth of God. Help me hope in God the only true source of strength. Like Jonathan who when running for his life, strengthened David’s hand in God. This is my Up Club. They remind me that “even if” the outcome I want doesn’t come to pass, God is with me and He is good. They remind me that I exist for God, not He for me. They remind me that I am special and so is everyone else. That God so loved me and millions of others. That God can open any door he chooses without me shoving it. Without me kicking against the goads.”

As an active participant in her own Up Club, she carries this Meek Gem by Jeremiah Burroughs in her heart to reset her own meek mindset when she doesn’t get her way.

Why Meekness Matters:

The scriptures promise that “the meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD” Isaiah 29:19. Meekness is a fruit of the Spirit of the Living God dwelling in our hearts. Gal 5:23. God asks us to literally put on meekness like a piece of clothing: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” Colossians 3:12. If meekness matters this much to God, how can we possibly ignore it?

Our December Mission:

Our mission this month wraps up the entire year with a form of rearview mirror celebration. In your mission pack you will find five “this side up” stickers. If you aren't receiving our free mission packs, go to the contact page and send us a message. We'll get one out to you.

Can we challenge ourselves to reflect on our year through Meek Lenses? The way Abigail did? Who was in your Up Club this year? Who pointed you up to the Lord in your time of need, trouble, self-pity, victory, celebration or delight? Can you list five people that the Lord has used to help you see His mighty hand on your one ridiculous life?

It could be a stranger like the woman who released a podcast on meekness not knowing who would need to look up! It could be a family member who refused to tell you what you wanted to hear but asked challenging questions that pointed you to the Lord. It could be a pastor or a group leader that opened God’s truth and explained it in a way you could digest it. It could be a co-worker who wore meekness like a piece of clothing when others might have lashed out or shut you down. They demonstrated strength under the control of the Spirit of the living God and you looked up.

Consider sending some of those stickers to people in your Up Club. Tell them what that means. Tell them how much you value their participation in your Spiritual life. And don’t forget to save one of those stickers for this question – who did YOU point up this year? Whose Up Club were you a participant in? As Abigail taught me during her interview, we are both needed and needy. Where did you allow yourself to be needed as an arrow up?

If you would like to invite others to our Up Club – The Ridiculous Hour Foundation exists to point people to live lives responsive to the promptings of God – we included gift cards in your mission pack to give away for free. Each recipient will receive one full year of adventures with The Ridiculous Hour on us. With each mission, we’ll be pointing up! Looking for the hand of God on our ridiculous lives.

Amen?

Amen!