How does God's attribute of meekness explain His relationship with us?

J. Hathaway

- 8 minutes read - 1548 words

Meekness in context

In my previous post I asked, ‘How might we describe God’s attribute of meekness?’ I have pulled a few lines from that post to help highlight how His quality of meekness could explain our1 interaction with Him.

Patient and responsive to agency

He is open to our earnest petitions and will modestly, graciously, and discreetly support us in our journey. As the holder of perfected meekness, he will be patient with our learning, and He will sincerely share all that He can with any that desire. As He shares His truths, he will be gentle, kind, and loving. His long-suffering will allow us to find truth by persuasion instead of force.2

At times, I think we use the phrase, unconditional love, a little loose3. We want to describe God as the first love, the instigator, the steady or always reciprocated love. We agree with John, ‘We love him because he first loved us.’ He will not withhold love because we are less intelligent, of the wrong race, or born into a different faith. He is always there in patience, waiting for us to invite him into our journey. If someone uses the phrase ‘unconditional love’ to mean first love, steady love, or reciprocated love, then I think that context is appropriate.

His meekness honors our power of agency and waits for us to invite. He will eternally persuade us to step into His love to choose Him. We have conditioned His love on our choice to love Him. He sincerely desires to share His love, but He will not impose it upon us. He also wants to grow this loving relationship and has described how we can invite Him in love. Jesus said, ‘If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.’ So we can keep His words and find His love. He will always be there, giving us all the love and truth that we can handle.

His patience and respect for agency will also allow Him to endure our hate and indifference to His word. His love is not fickle. He can take our hatred to give us the time to find His love. He knows that love requires two parties to choose the relationship and will make sure that His love is not the failure point in the relationship. To build on this choice of love, He will allow each child, each government, each church, and each people to freely choose to strengthen or weaken this binding relationship of love.

Restrained strength

Meekness is an attribute of God that gives Him the restrained active strength so that He can use His wisdom from above as a pure, gentle, and merciful God. He will always speak up, but never speak down to us.2

What might it mean for God to ’never speak down to us?’ Restrained strength gives Him the power to let us make our decisions even when they may not be optimal or His choices. Not just to let us make non-optimal choices but to support us when we make those choices4. He will find a way to help us through our choices. Meekness requires that he ‘speak up’ to show us the way we could choose. Meekness also motivates His belief that we will improve our decisions. He empowers us to know that we are capable of making the best choice. His restraint will allow us to struggle, even sin, as we seek Him. His strength promises that painful periods (whether they be minutes or centuries) will give way to His purposes.

The great persuader

His power and influence in our lives and the universe come as He takes the role of initiator, facilitator, and consolidator. He does not need to be a dictator, manipulator, or discourager.2

God will not force us into Zion. He knows that His dominion in Zion will flow unto Him forever and ever without compulsory means5. His faith and power of persuasion (not salesmanship but love) empower Him to plan the future and reveal it to His prophets. He can work with us in our agency to initiate, consolidate, and facilitate His plan. His meekness would not allow Him to manipulate us or dictate what we must do to enact His plan. He persuades, and with any persuasion, there are alternatives that we can choose. He is prepared for our choices, but He will not discourage our use of agency.

Most moved mover

This meekness that enlarges His soul in purity readily acknowledges the accomplishments of others as He esteems others better than Himself. He is receptive to learning from His children, who are less capable, less experienced, and less educated. He knows that they have much to contribute.2

  • How could a God that is perfect esteem His imperfect children as better than He is?
  • How can He learn from us?
  • Why does He need us to contribute?

When we hold others in high esteem, we respect and admire them above others. Meekness in its purity is the attribute of esteeming or admiring others above ourselves. This type of respect is love. The meekness that flows through eternity demands that we all act as God and esteem others as more than ourselves6. He and we can continue to learn as we are introduced to new relationships in our eternal life.

This respect that he provides to you and I can empower us to become our potential. He does not have to be the one that makes everything happen. He wants us to be the ones that make the plan happen - That is the power of meekness7. He is willing to move with us as we make the decisions He has empowered us to make as His agents.

He has made us His agents. All are the controlling agents over the organized life He has gifted. Many are responsible agents for a family, a congregation, or a church. We are His agents. He trusts us to act as His agents and will honor our efforts to represent Him. In this honor, He will not dictate or manipulate us as His agents. He will persuade us and collaborate with us as His agents. As the Most Moved Mover, He can be moved by our faith and love.

Love

He is more concerned with our willingness to take him by his loving hand and less concerned about us taking Him for granted.2

Meekness culminates as love for all and each. He is meek; therefore, he loves. Meekness is what allows superior beings to love. He sees us for who we are and wants to be with us. He is genuinely not interested in who we have been or our shortcomings of today. He knows the path to exaltation and wants to guide us there.

The atonement is built to let us take advantage of His great power. We may never understand His real power. The attribute of meekness motivates Him to help us know our real potential. As we Honor him above all others, He is ok if we don’t fully understand the magnitude of the distance between Him and the second most powerful being.

Meekness

I remember my dad saying, ‘I believe God is meek.’ He went on to describe how that meekness could almost make Him appear shy. In fact, the definition of meek provided by Google seems to imply that meekness is shy. I know that meekness is much more than shyness. However, this idea of timidity and submissiveness is part of meekness. Pondering His attribute of meekness will help us understand our import and our relationship with Him. He does stand in meekness at the door, waiting for us to open. He loves us and is responsive to us in meekness. He loves us in meekness8.

  1. My use of the word ‘our’ means than individuals. I think this post applies to kingdoms, governments, churches, tribes, and families. God interacts with all of these bodies. We as a body of people and as individuals have agency and His meekness will describe His interactions with each. ↩︎

  2. How might we describe God’s attribute of meekness? ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  3. Then Elder Nelson’s talk Divine Love explains how a different use of the phrase ‘unconditional love’ is incorrect. ↩︎

  4. The support is not of the type that is blind to the choice made. It is of the type that is motivating to the choices that can be made in the future. ↩︎

  5. D&C 121:46 ↩︎

  6. Meekness does not mean tentativeness. But thoughtfulness. Meekness makes room for others: “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” (Philip. 2:3.) Neal A. Maxwell ‘Meek and Lowly’ ↩︎

  7. My previous post, ‘Is prophecy conditional or set in stone?’ discusses one application of this idea. ↩︎

  8. His perfection defines the possibility of all His attributes. He controls them and uses them perfectly. They do not limit Him. They empower Him. However, we should be willing to ponder how all His attributes held together will define the reach of each attribute. This pondering may tone down some of the mental pictures that we build when we hear other attributes like omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. Maybe His meekness conditions these other attributes. ↩︎

comments powered by Disqus