“But the meek will inherit the land.” – Psalm 37:11
True or false: the one who dies with the most toys wins. Or how about the one who has the most money wins? What about the one who is the most brilliant and has the most advanced degrees, or the one who has reached the highest level in his or her organization, the one who has traveled the most, has the most beautiful wife or debonair husband, the best athlete, the most talented artist or musician, has won the most awards, become the most famous or the most powerful? In the end who wins? It’s a trick question, as you have probably figured out already, and the answer, as you might expect, is none of the above. The question remains, though, who does win in the end?
King Solomon himself, arguably the wisest and richest man who ever lived, wrestled with this great philosophical question centuries ago, a man who had everything and indulged in almost every sensual experience we can imagine. Yet, toward the end of his life he came to the conclusion that nothing – I mean nothing – on this earth can fully satisfy a human’s desire for complete fulfillment. “Meaningless! . . . Utterly meaningless!” he declared in his essay we know as the Book of Ecclesiastes. “Everything is meaningless . . . a chasing after the wind.”
Alcoholics, it has been described, are not people who drink too much; rather people who can never drink enough because their thirst for alcohol – their addiction – can never be satisfied. So it is with every earthly desire, as Solomon learned from experience, for no matter how much we have it is never enough. Our thirst for fulfillment, as alcohol is for an alcoholic, is never satisfied no matter how much we gain, attain, or accomplish.
So, in the end who wins? If it is not the one with the most toys or the most money, the most brilliant with the most degrees on the wall, the CEOs, star athletes, the rich and powerful, who is it then? This may come as a shock, but scripture tells us it the meek. “The meek will inherit the land,” the Psalmist wrote, which Jesus later affirmed when He said that “they [the meek] will inherit the earth.” By meek, does he mean the weak who cower in the corner? No, not the weak but the strong, the courageous ones with the heart and humility to love and serve others without regard for oneself. Yes, it’s the meek, of all people, who wind up being the real winners. Shocking, isn’t it?