Blessed are the Meek

I am currently doing a study on The Sermon on the Mount. In the study, there were different attributes of God we were to study. The first one was "God is sovereign; God is in control." I must confess that I have trouble with the statement God is in control. I especially have trouble with this statement when I read this verse "He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap (1 Samuel 2:8)." My questioning is if God is "in control" than why are still a billion people still living on only a dollar a day and over 2 billion without access to clean water. Why has God not lifted these poor people up?

Then I think about the Beatitudes and Matthew 5:5 that says, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." Meek in Hebrew means humble, afflicted, poor, oppressed. So here is Jesus challenging ME to help the poor and oppressed to inherit the earth. So maybe God is "in control" in the sense that He has empowered me to live out these challenges of Jesus.

So maybe all 6 billion of us on the planet can't make a difference but many of us can. We have one life that God has entrusted to us and we can either give back to His creation or we can live each day just for ourself. I am thankful for something I learned about today. Bill Clinton has begun the Clinton Global Initiative (and by the way, if you are a Republican, please get over the fact that this was a democratic president heading it up). Today marks the fifth day of the United Nations General Assembly meeting and the day that the Clinton Global Initiative is meeting with 1600 leaders around the world. Many have already made commitments and many more today will be made. You don't even have to be at the meeting to make a commitment. This initiative focuses on four areas: education, alleviating poverty, energy and climate change, and global health. To read more about it go to this link: http://www2.mycommitment.org/.

-Sarah