beatitude #3: how are you trying to make a flourishing life happen?

Jun 03, 2021

"The measure of a man is what he does with power." — Plato

"O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant." — William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

The Beatitudes are all about Jesus challenging our culture’s approach to flourishing and flipping it upside down. In his third Beatitude, Jesus wants us to wrestle with a key question: how are you trying to make things happen in your life?

Jesus knows that behind all of the different tips, techniques, and strategies for flourishing that people employ, there are only two ways to answer this question. Either you can follow our secular culture’s approach, by trying to make things happen through your own power, strength, and assertiveness.

Or, you can follow Jesus’ approach in his third Beatitude, which says:

Flourishing are the meek because they shall inherit the earth.

Jesus’ approach to flourishing seems absurd to us. How can the meek flourish? But Jesus gave us this third Beatitude to cause us to reflect on the question: how are you trying to make things happen?

our secular culture's approach to flourishing

The secular approach tells us that the key to flourishing is to make things happen through your power. It’s up to you to create a thriving life. And so, from a young age, our culture teaches us:

Flourishing are the powerful, strong, and aggressive, for they will make things happen.

This means that if you want to flourish, you have to become the kind of person who can make things happen for yourself. That's the only way to succeed at the secular approach to flourishing, which tells us that the best way to flourish is to build a personal kingdom big enough to satisfy all of your desires.

This approach towards flourishing, that I have to make things happen for myself, flows from three foundational assumptions in our culture. They are:

Life is a competition, where everything is up for grabs, and everyone's competing against each other for a limited amount of success, money, and status. We all compete against each other for the most desirable spouse, college degree, job, neighborhood, and position of status and respect, just to name a few.
This competition is a zero-sum game since more people want these markers of success than are available. We compete against our peers for them, believing that for us to win, someone else has to lose. Only one of us can get the guy/girl, the invite, the paycheck, or the corner office, etc.
The best way to win at this competition is by accumulating power since we need to defeat the people around us to ensure that we win and can lay claim to the scarce and desirable resources, relationships, and opportunities that we all believe we need to flourish. By accumulating and using power, you'll be able to get the date, the interview, the attention, the job, and the success you need to thrive.

While we often hear this system called a meritocracy, the idea that success flows to those who deserve it most, a more accurate term would be a "powerocracy," where success comes to those who use their talents, connections, and opportunities to make things happen for themselves.

why is power so important?

This is why our culture is always talking about power. Sure, we often use gentler-sounding words, such as leadership, influence, ambition, or type-A personality, but make no mistake, those are all power-based terms.

This "power leads to flourishing" message can be found everywhere, especially in self-help thinking, which is always urging you to “unleash the power within” to “take back control of your life” and “stand up for your rights,” all so you can “change the world!”

It also shows up on social media, where so many influencers talk non-stop about “empowering” their followers. This empowerment message follows the same assumption:

You've been minimizing your power, living a small, weak, and timid life, all to fit into the expectations of the people around you. If you want to flourish in this competitive world, you need to be empowered until you're strong, aggressive, and won't back down from anything!

We are constantly told that if you want to flourish, you need to regain your personal agency in the world and use it to make things happen for yourself. This cultural mindset makes power one of the most sought-after abilities in our culture since we believe that it's only through increasing our personal power that we can flourish.

so what is power?

Power is one of those words that everyone understands but no one is quite sure how to define. Think of power, though, as the ability to make things happen.

We all have power in varying degrees, through our natural abilities, our positions, our roles, our resources, and our personalities, just to name a few. You have power to the degree that you can shape the way that the people around you live and think. Power gives us either influence, changing how other people live, or autonomy, resisting other people’s attempts to change us.

Most of us are quite good at pointing out where other people have power, but we're often blind to our own power and influence. We often rationalize our desire for power away, calling out other people’s desire for power, but then develop self-narratives to support and rationalize all of our attempts at greater power: we don’t want power, per se, we just want things to run smoothly.

We all daydream and fantasize about someday having more power. "If I only were _______," we think, filling in the blank with being famous, wealthy, popular, in charge, successful, "Then I'd really be doing well." Power, we believe, will give us the ability we need to make things happen and ensure that we experience a flourishing life.

so how do we try to get power?

We spend our lives trying to expand our tiny kingdoms, hoping we will get more power. While few people ever wake up and say to themselves, "My main goal today is to accumulate more power," subconsciously we're always jockeying for power.

We learn at a young age to outwardly act uninterested in power, afraid we are seen as power-hungry. But behind the scenes, though, we all have a deep desire for power which shows up in every area of our lives: friend groups, workplaces, relationships, and society as a whole.

As we grow up, we observe who has power and who doesn't, causing us to embrace the people, activities, beliefs, behaviors, trends, and opportunities which expand our power, while excluding, hiding, or avoiding anyone or anything that would diminish our power.

And so we spend our lives trying to increase our kingdoms, hopeful that we can get more:

Social power: through our status, popularity, and friendships.
Financial power: through our income, possessions, and wealth.
Cultural power: through our class, neighborhood, and lifestyle.
Physical power: through our strength, health, and athletic ability.
Romantic power: through our body type, appearance, and attractiveness.
Intellectual power: through our degrees and ability to attend prestigious schools.
Countercultural power: through our willingness to reject what’s “normal.”

How does the pursuit of power affect our lives? One of the major ways is in how we use power as the lens through which we evaluate our options and chart our lives.

This quest for power subtly influences everything we do, whether we’re deciding where to go to college, whom to marry, what career to pursue, what neighborhood to live in, how to use our extra money, what clothes to wear, what to do on the weekends, and who to allow into our closest circle of friends, just to name a few.

But once we build personal kingdoms that give us power, how do we hope to turn it into flourishing?

how do we use power to try to flourish?

After we accumulate power, then we use power to get what every human being wants: control. Since flourishing in the secular approach is all about having our desires met, power gives us the ability to control the world around us and impose our will onto other people, places, and things, ensuring that our desires are prioritized and fulfilled.

We believe that:

the more power you have —> the more your desires will be met —> the more you’ll flourish

Why is it necessary to use our power to impose our will onto others? Because since we all want the same things, either tangible (job, opportunities, romantic interests, possessions), or intangible (respect, popularity, approval, comfort, a sense of being successful), we know our desires are going to come into conflict with the desires of our peers.

In our individualistic culture, where everyone is trying to accomplish their own goals, we use power to outmaneuver our peers and make things happen for ourselves, ensuring that our desires are met. We use power to make sure:

The group follows my plan.
The boss praises my idea.
This other person follows me on social media first.
My criticisms are seen as valid and create real change.
I’m chosen and accepted by this other powerful person.
My spouse listens to me first.
I’m able to exclude less powerful people when I want to.

When we accumulate power, we can use it to gain control of a situation and make sure our desires get met. We believe that when we are using our power to make things happen and win at life, we’ll be able to flourish.

what drives our desires for power?

Few people want to use power like this, to impose our will on others, but we all do. Why? Because of fear. We're afraid that if we don’t use power to ensure that our desires are met, we won't flourish, and will go through life alone, unwanted, disrespected, and unworthy of love.

We see how uncertain the world is, and develop a deep fear that we will never flourish. In our hyper-individualistic world, we’re afraid that if we don’t look out for #1 and make things happen for ourselves, then no one else will. We wonder:

What if I never “make it?”
What if I don’t live up to my family’s expectations?
What if my peers are all more successful than me?
What if I’m never able to retire?
What if no one will love me?

These fears drive us and make us radically insecure. Power, then, becomes the way we try to solve these insecurities. The secular approach to flourishing promises that:

“If you accumulate power and use it to impose our will and desires on others, you can create a life of certainty, success, and flourishing through your own efforts.

Deep down, we use power to try to force the world to revolve around us, thinking that if we can just win all of the daily power struggles we’re engaged in, whether it’s at our work, in our marriage, in our friendships, or in society at large, then we’ll be guaranteed a good life.

why doesn't it work?

But the secular approach of trying to flourish by using power to make things happen doesn’t work for two major reasons:

The first reason is because our desires are corrupted. Because of the sinfulness of our hearts, our desires are corrupt and lead us to all kinds of unhealthy and destructive behaviors. We tell ourselves that we are using our power just to help us flourish, but because our desires are corrupted, we go too far, and use power in ways that harm the people and places around us. We don’t see this, though, because we rationalize it away, since we’re getting what we want.

People often think that power corrupts our desires, but in actuality, as the great biographer Robert Caro writes: power doesn’t corrupt a person, but rather it reveals the corruption that’s already there.

The second reason is because no amount of power can give us real security. Since every human being has limited power, no amount of power can ever be enough to silence our fears and solve our insecurities. This means that when we try to fix our insecurities through gaining personal power, we’ll always need more and more power to make us feel secure, leading us to all kinds of obsessive things that cause us to harm ourselves and others. As Henri Nouwen wrote:

Power always lusts after greater power precisely because it is an illusion. Despite our experience that power does not give us the sense of security we desire, but instead reveals our own weaknesses and limitations, we continue to make ourselves believe that more power will eventually fulfill our needs.

Collectively, these two problems with power cause all kinds of destructive behavior. When we abuse power we:

Become controlling: we try to use power to control others, infringing on their lives and forcing them to submit to us, which causes all kinds of brokenness and resentment.
Become angry: we become angry and bitter anytime someone "disobeys" our will and doesn't do what we want. We blow up and call them disloyal and selfish.
Become coercive: we use force to coerce others to conform to our desires. We threaten to damage or sabotage their lives so that they have to obey us.
Become oppressive: we use our power to oppress others, diminishing their lives in unfair, abusive and cruel ways. We exclude them all so that we can succeed.
Become tribal: we use power to only help our tribe, seeing everyone else as a threat against our kingdom, which causes us to hoard our power and refuse to cooperate or help others.

These behaviors flow out of society's belief that the best way to flourish is by accumulating power and using it to get our way. As we try to gain more and more power for our personal kingdoms, we crash into the personal kingdoms of our spouse, friends, coworkers, and peers, creating catastrophic results for everyone involved.

The abuse of power affects all of us, whether we have a lot of power or just a little, and harms individuals, families, communities, and countries, causing so much conflict, pain, cruelty, and suffering.

so what's the root problem?

We should be clear, though, the root problem with the secular approach to flourishing isn’t with power, but rather with how we use power. After all, God used his power for good, to create the universe. He also used his power to create Adam and Eve in his image, and then gave human beings the gift of power in order to create, develop, and rule over the world.

He told them:

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over...every living thing that moves on the earth.

God saw power as good, healthy, and necessary for humanity to reach our potential, so he gave it to Adam and Eve as a gift, so that humans might use it for God’s glory by bringing all kinds of good things out of his creation. Power was a good thing, something needed for God’s creation to flourish and reach its potential.

The root problem though, is that Adam and Eve didn’t use their power to bring glory to God, but rather to try to take the place of God! When Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he told Eve that if she ate the forbidden fruit, “Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.” God had given them power, but they wanted more!

But when Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the fruit, they didn’t become God, but rather rejected God and kicked off a cosmic war against God. Because of the Fall:

We’re all separated from God, resulting in a radical insecurity in our hearts. We were not made to exist apart from a relationship with God, so we can’t deal with the uncertainty and lack of control that floods our lives.
But instead of returning to God, we hate God and use the power that God gave us as a gift not to honor him, but rather to try to take his place. We try to act like God in order to regain a sense of control over our lives by trying to make the world revolve around us.

No matter how much we try to use power to become like God, we’re not God; we're not good, kind, fair, just, and loving. And so when we try to enforce our plans on the world around us, it always causes major problems. We use our power selfishly which oppresses and harms others.

This is why the obsession with power in the secular approach to flourishing doesn’t work. The idea that you can use your power to make things happen and create a flourishing life sounds good at first, in practice, it doesn't create flourishing, but rather wreaks havoc in every area of our lives.

Part 2: Jesus' approach to flourishing

When Jesus came to earth, he entered a culture much like ours, which was built on personal power and the ability to impose your will on other people. But in this Beatitude, Jesus said that it's not the powerful, strong, and aggressive who flourish, but rather taught that:

Flourishing are the meek, because they shall inherit the earth.

This Beatitude puzzles everyone who has ever heard it: how can the meek flourish? When we hear Jesus calling us to be meek, most people assume that he wants them to be weak, submissive people who feel inadequate about everything and let everyone else walk all over them. Is that what Jesus wants us to be?

what does Jesus mean by the word meek?

But this isn't what Jesus means by meekness at all. When Jesus uses the word meek, he doesn't mean weak, but rather surrendered. He used the Greek word praeis, which means a tamed wild animal. A meek person is like a wild stallion who has been broken in and can be ridden. The stallion retains his strength, but now has surrendered it to the command of his rider.

Meekness is not about acting weak, but rather surrendering our power, strength, and ambition to God, in order to use these gifts according to his will and not ours. The meek person has stopped trying to flourish by using their power to impose their agenda onto others, but flourishes because they have surrendered themselves to God and are letting him work on their behalf.

To be meek, as one author put it, "Is not to be shorn of ambition, but to have one's ambition transformed from self-serving purposes to that of serving God." Eugene Peterson said that meekness transforms our power from reckless self-serving energy into sanctified energy; energy that it sets apart to be used according to God’s will.

Human power, like every kind of energy, whether it’s dynamite, electricity, or nuclear fission, must be controlled in order to be used both safely and for good. When Jesus teaches that you have to be meek in order to flourish, he’s calling you to surrender your power to God, so that it can be put to use, not to build your own kingdom, but rather to serve God’s kingdom.

how do you become meek?

Becoming meek is a simple process, but like many simple things, it’s extremely hard. Surrendering our power to be used by God doesn't come naturally, and only happens as the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to how we are using our power to flourish outside of God. But in order to become meek, you must:

Admit that you're not and can't be God: you're not the supreme being at the center of the universe who is all-good, all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful. This sounds obvious but until God works in our hearts we can't live this way.
Accept that you do have power: some people go too far, though, and end up absolving themselves of all power and responsibility. That is apathy, not meekness. A meek person seeks to understand where they have power and works to cultivate more of it, realizing that power is a gift from God.
Submit yourself to God's revealed will: When you realize you have power, you search God's revealed will (aka the Bible) and submit your power to his purposes. You commit your ways to God, obeying his will and not your own.
You entrust the outcome to God: when you’re totally surrendered to God, you trust him with the outcome and results of your life. Even when powerful and aggressive seem to be much more successful than you right now, the meek person rests in God’s sovereignty and doesn’t become anxious or angry, even when you experience setbacks and hardships.

We see examples of this process all throughout the Bible, as men and women encountered God, surrendered their lives to him, and lived incredible lives of consecrated power for God's kingdom. We see meekness in the lives of:

Moses: who surrendered to God's will for his life, and was empowered to challenge the most powerful leader of the world to let God's people go, before leading them to the Promised Land.
Gideon: who obeyed when God called him to lead the Israelite army against Midian, even when God reduced his fighting force from 32,000 soldiers to 300. God used this small army to route the Midians and run them off.
Esther: she surrendered her safety to God's plan for her life, first becoming queen and then risking her life to use her power to expose a planned genocide of the Jews before the king.
The Early Church: the early church obeyed Jesus’ command to wait patiently in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high. This power descended on them on the day of Pentecost, resulting in 3,000 conversions.
Peter and John: these two disciples boldly preached the gospel in the temple courtyard, even after they were arrested and told to stop. The two men were so surrendered to God, that they told the Jewish leaders that it didn’t matter how much they threatened them, they were never going to stop preaching.

All of these people displayed incredible meekness, but they weren’t weak. They recognized their limitations, but were willing to surrender their lives to God and trusted him to work on their behalf. And as God worked on their behalf, he used their little efforts to make an exponential impact on the world.

so why do the meek flourish?

So why do those who surrender to God and entrust themselves to him flourish? Surrendering our power to an invisible God seems crazy to our culture. How are you ever going to get anything done? But that’s the incredible part of this Beatitude: you don’t have to make things happen, because God has already made it happen!

The key to understanding why the meek flourish is found in the second part of the Beatitude, where Jesus says, “Because they shall inherit the earth.” Inherit. That’s the crucial word. Why? Because it contradicts everything that the secular approach to flourishing believes. Our culture teaches that if you want to flourish, you’ve got to get out there and take over, using your personal power to build your kingdom.

But an inheritance is the exact opposite of that. It is a gift that you receive, not on the basis of what you’ve done, but rather because of a relationship that you have. You can’t do anything to earn an inheritance, it is always based on what someone else has done.

The meek flourish because they receive God’s inheritance, not because of what they've done, but rather because of what Jesus Christ has done. Jesus came to earth, and through his resurrection power, established the eternal kingdom of God, which will culminate at his second coming, when he ushers in God's eternal place of flourishing: the new heavens and the earth.

The meek ultimately flourish not because they create their own kingdom, but rather because they are adopted into God's family through the work of Jesus Christ and receive the inheritance that he deserves. Through Christ we become God's heirs and inherit God's kingdom.

Paul describes how this happens in Galatians 4:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son...so that we might receive adoption as sons. So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

When you surrender to God and entrust yourself to Jesus Christ, you’re no longer an orphan alone in the universe, trying to fight off others to ensure your survival and expand your tiny kingdom, but rather a son or daughter of the King of the universe.

This is why the meek flourish, not because they take over the earth through their own strength, but rather because through Christ they are adopted into God's family and receive his inheritance: eternal life within the new heavens and the new earth.

what does this flourishing look like?

But the flourishing that God promises to the meek isn't just a future flourishing, it's a present flourishing as well. As the meek surrender to God and find their security in God's resurrection power and eternal inheritance, they promote flourishing all around them. Why? Because:

Since a meek person no longer has to make things happen through their own puny human power, but rather are connected to the power and resources of God, who set the universe on its foundation and owns the cattle on a thousand hills.
Since they aren't obsessed over the size of their own kingdoms, they can use their gifts, resources, and time not to dominate others, but rather to serve God's kingdom and work for the greater good.
Since they don't feel the pressure to make things happen for themselves, they don't trample over the rights, feelings, and lives of everyone around them. They are marked by a gentleness, where strength is harnessed by love.
Since they don't have to impose their will on others to make sure they flourish, they help to create communities based around cooperation, not conflict, and working together, which leads to growing, vibrant communities that benefit everyone.
Since they have surrendered to God's will and are trusting him to provide, they don't live cutthroat lives of hyper-competition, and don't need to hoard resources or dominate or oppress their peers.
Since they no longer have to use their own kingdom to create security and safety, they can rest securely in God and his provision for them, driving out all fear.

As the meek surrender their lives to God and use their power in submission to his will, people, communities, and cultures flourish. It's paradoxical to our secular thinking, but God promises that it's the only way we'll ever truly flourish.

so where do we get the ability to surrender our lives to God?

So where do we get the ability to become meek? Surrendering our lives to God sounds good in theory, but it isn't easy in real life. It goes against what feels safe, secure, and natural to us. The key, though, is not to try to force yourself to become meek, but rather to let Jesus' example melt your heart.

When Jesus was out in the desert at the beginning of his public ministry, Satan came to him with the same temptation that he gave to Adam and Eve: "If you reject God and obey me, then I will give you more power and glory than you could ever imagine."

But unlike Adam and Eve, Jesus didn't want his own power, he only wanted to do God's will. So he refused to elevate his will about God's. Jesus lived his entire earthly life in total surrender to God’s will, not pushing his agenda onto God, but seeking to obey God in everything that he did.

By doing that, he did what Adam and Eve were supposed to, but didn't. While in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve said “Not thy will be done, but MINE,” in the Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus waited to be arrested, tortured, and bear the punishment for our sin, he said the exact opposite: “Not my will be done, but THINE.”

We’re all afraid to surrender our lives to God because we don’t think we can trust him. But Jesus shows us we can. Jesus offered his life up to God’s will, and by surrendering his power to God, he was raised from the dead and now has ultimate power: resurrection power over death.

When we see how Jesus' total surrender was translated by God into eternal glory and power, we can trust that God will do the same for us. A flourishing life isn't found in creating your own kingdom through your own power, but rather in surrendering your life to God and resting in the resurrection power of his kingdom.

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