otect itself from every
slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and
enemy, will never let the mind have rest. Continue this fight through
the years and the burden will become intolerable. Yet the sons of earth
are carrying this burden continually, challenging every word spoken
against them, cringing under every criticism, smarting under each
fancied slight, tossing sleepless if another is preferred before them.

Such a burden as this is not necessary to bear. Jesus calls us to His
rest, and meekness is His method. The meek man cares not at all who is
greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the
world is not worth the effort. He develops toward himself a kindly sense
of humor and learns to say, "Oh, so you have been overlooked? They have
placed someone else before you? They have whispered that you are pretty
small stuff after all? And now you feel hurt because the world is saying
about you the very things you have been saying about yourself? Only
yesterday you were telling God that you were nothing, a mere worm of the
dust. Where is your consistency? Come on, humble yourself, and cease to
care what men think."

The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own
inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as
strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has
accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and
helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at
the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than
angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He
knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has
stopped caring. He rests perfectly content to allow God to place His own
values. He will be patient to wait for the day when everything will get
its own price tag and real worth will come into its own. Then the
righteous shall shine forth in the Kingdom of their Father. He is
willing to wait for that day.

In the meantime he will have attained a place of soul rest. As he walks
on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him. The old struggle
to defend himself is over. He has found the peace which meekness
brings.

Then also he will get deliverance from the burden of _pretense_. By this
I mean not hypocrisy, but the common human desire to put the best foot
forward and hide from the world our real inward