What Does It Mean to Be Meek?

This is from a portion of my talk that I did not have time to give back in June:

"And blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

My purpose today is to inspire you to keep your covenants more fully. And to take action in so doing.

There are several, varying definitions of meek. When it is so hard to find a consistent or meaningful definition, I find it helpful and more reliable to look at the etymology of a word – the study of the true sense – which tells its origin language and meanings. For meek a few of the original meanings are "gentle, courteous, kind," (from around 1200AD) "soft, pliant, gentle," (from Old Norse mjukr) which lead to the sense of "submissive" (from mid-14c).

If the term submissive is used then the scripture that comes to mind for me is Mosiah 3:19 “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

To me a better term may be ‘obedient’ to the Lord. In fact, I think of the exact obedience as shown to us by the 2000 stripling warriors who "did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness."​

There is a lot that I could go into on the word meek and how to apply it to our lives but I am going to simplify it by describing how working towards 'a broken heart and a contrite spirit’ will allow us to become meek.

I like the illustration given in ​The Beatitudes and Our Perfection by Elder Royden G. Derrick

"​When I was a boy, a herd of horses ran wild on Ensign Flats just north of the Utah State Capitol building. In the summertime we would occasionally sit on the mountainside with binoculars and watch the herd as they roamed and grazed on the flat below. For the most part the horses appeared to be a mangy lot, but there was one that had a grace, a dignity, and a spirit that qualified him to lead the herd. We tried on several occasions to put a rope on this stallion. One day we succeeded, but we soon found that we had on the end of the rope a bundle of fury that we couldn’t manage. As hard as we tried, we couldn’t ride him. After several attempts we gave up and turned him loose. He was of no value to us."

"I was reading recently that when professionals train Arabian horses they work with them for several months. At the conclusion of the training period they are placed in a corral without food or water. After several days both food and water are placed some distance away, but within sight. The gate is then opened and the horses run to satisfy their appetites."

"​Just before they reach the food and water, the trainer blows a whistle. Those that respond to the trainer’s whistle are singled out as the most valued. They are submissive to the master’s call​."

When a horse is brought to this point it is said that the horse has been broken. Likewise, we need our hearts to be broken, or submissive to the Master's call.

​I also looked up the etymology of the word contrite and it means 'to rub together.' I like to think that it means to rub to the point of being smooth or not resistant. The opposite would be to grind, as in to grind to powder. I think that if we choose to resist the will of God then we will be ground to powder figuratively.

​President Eyring spoke at the last conference of the trial that his mother went through with cancer. "One of the speakers at her funeral was President Spencer W. Kimball. Among the tributes he paid, I remember one that went something like this: “Some of you may have thought that Mildred suffered so long and so much because of something she had done wrong that required the trials.” He then said, “No, it was that God just wanted her to be polished a little more.”"

​To me the term polished is one of the best words to describe contrite.