The labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed... The heart's fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest...
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... Where is your consistency? Come on, humble yourself, and cease to care what men think.'
The meek man ... 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...
(Chapter 9)
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