I met a man today who owns and runs a company. In that company is another man who embezzled money, lots of money, from this company. I met him, too.<\/p>\n
The very unique thing about this is that I met them sitting at the same table. What were they doing at this table? The broad answer is that they were sitting with each other, smack dab in the middle of the tension that had been created by one of their sins against the other, seeing if they could use this tension, this blatant and dishonest wrong, to both change.<\/p>\n
The owner of the company had every right to have this employee arrested and put in prison. <\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The owner had every right to at least fire this guy who has proven himself untrustworthy and dishonest.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The owner had every right to at the very least cut his pay, and put him in another position in the company where he was less free to do something like this again.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Instead, he invited this guy to this table where I met them. And I watched as he offered this guy grace. He offered this guy a chance. He offered this guy the opportunity to transform. <\/p>\n
And here\u2019s the kicker: he offered this guy HIMSELF as a companion and friend on the journey.<\/p>\n
What does it take for a man like this owner, who holds all the power, who could have punished this man to whatever extent he wanted to, and been \u201cjustified\u201d, approved of, and maybe even applauded for doing so, to offer a man like this sinner, who holds no power, has no defense, no excuse, and nothing to defend himself, such a thing as this?<\/p>\n
What does it take? It takes meekness.<\/p>\n
When the Bible uses the word meek, it is true that it is speaking of people that wield no power to manipulate the world to serve themselves or get things to go their way. In this way, the employee was in the meek position.<\/p>\n
But the word meek is also speaking of those who DO have access to the power to move and shake the world to serve themselves or get things to go their way\u2026but DON\u2019T.<\/p>\n
And instead, submit their power willingly to the loving agenda of God.<\/p>\n
That is what this owner I met was doing at the table with this employee I met.<\/p>\n
They were both meek. They were both powerless. One because of his submitting to temptation. One because of his submitting to God. Now, as brothers, both of them are working together, facing their fears, facing themselves, and facing God. As meek brothers, they are powerfully working to transform and experience on this earth the Kingdom that God originally designed for them both in the first place.<\/p>\n
The way Jesus said it was, \u201cBlessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I want to be powerless like that. Powerless before God, and powerless because of my need to submit my power to God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I met a man today who owns and runs a company. In that company is another man who embezzled money, lots of money, from this company. I met him, too. The very unique thing about this is that I met them sitting at the same table. What were they doing at this table? The broad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,12,14,4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christ-vs-church","category-christs-mission","category-compassion","category-discipleship","category-the-best-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pO6nf-6c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}