Pilgr-image 07 - The Meek

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth – Matthew 5:5

Meekness is teachability. “The meek will he teach his way” (Ps. 25:9). It is the readiness to be shown, which includes the readiness to lay down my fixed notions, my objections and “what ifs” or “but what abouts,” my certainties about the rightness of what I have always done or thought or said. – Elisabeth Elliot

I have been a part of service and learning trips with churches in many different places.  Inner-city Denver, areas near the US-Mexico border around Tucson, Belize three times, Cambodia, Kenya, and the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota just to name a few.  There is a temptation with these trips to think that those of us going on the trips are bringing the Gospel and bringing knowledge and insights that others do not have.  This is a harmful missionary perspective that has been propagated for centuries and has thankfully finally begun to be repudiated in the last several decades.  A transformative perspective for me about these kinds of trips came from a book called When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert.  At one point, they write, “We are not bringing Christ to poor communities. He has been active in these communities since the creation of the world, sustaining them “by his powerful word” (Heb. 1:3). Hence, a significant part of working in poor communities involves discovering and appreciating what God has been doing there for a long time! This should give us a sense of humility and awe as we enter poor communities, for part of what we see there reflects the very hand of God.”

This book and the perspective it shares with many others is that our job when we go on any kind of “mission trip” is that we are to be meek, we are to be teachable, we are not to be the ones saying “we have the answers that you lack” but instead open to learning and growing from the wisdom with whom we serve and in the relationships that we begin and (hopefully) continue.  We are there to learn, to discover, and to appreciate first and foremost.  But this truth isn’t only for mission experiences but instead for every day of our lives.  Do we approach each day open to what new things God is going to teach us or open to the changes that God wants to do in us?  Or do we feel we have it all figured out and our job is to show that to others?  I am grateful that God is in the business of surprising us with what we do not yet know.