The Method of Acquiring Meekness: Taking up our Cross Daily

The Method of Acquiring Meekness:

Taking up our Cross Daily

Meekness, like any Christlike attribute is a spiritual gift.  One that is acquired as we...

1. Learn and understand it 
2. Seek, ask and knock to receive it through prayer and fasting
3. Desire and attempt to use it to do God's work

When we fulfill these above conditions and the Lord knows that our heart are pure and our level of obedience is such that we can be trusted with the great light, knowledge and power, then He will incrementally begin to bestow this gift upon us.

"We are blessed to be born with the seed of meekness in our hearts. We need to understand that it is not possible to grow and develop that seed in the twinkling of an eye but rather through the process of time. Christ asks us to “take up [our] cross daily,”¹⁰ meaning that it must be a constant focus and desire." - Soares

As we approach different aspects of meekness, it is important that we take them up as our cross daily. As we attempt to act on these traits we demonstrate our willingness to be instruments in God's hands. We demonstrate our faith by trusting that as we heed and follow promptings to use these abilities that the power to do so will follow.

President Lorenzo Snow taught...

“It is our duty to try to be perfect, … to improve each day, and look upon our course last week and do things better this week; do things better today than we did them yesterday.”

The first step on the path to meekness is to commit to improve each day.  We can repent and try to be better and do better in our prayers each night, and we can start our day with a statement of resolve and a request for added strength to keep it.

President Snow added...

“We have our little follies and our weaknesses; we should try to overcome them as fast as possible, and … should [instill] this feeling in the hearts of our children … that they may learn to [behave] properly before Him under all circumstances.

“If the husband can live with his wife one day without quarrelling or without treating anyone unkindly or without grieving the Spirit of God … he is so far perfect. Then let him try to be the same the next day. But supposing he should fail in this his next day’s attempt, that is no reason why he should not succeed in doing so the third day.”

When we turn to the Lord daily and acknowledge Him and our desires to be diligent, He will give us what we cannot obtain ourselves.  That is the miracle of the enabling power of the atonement.  It is the miracle of Grace.  That 'by Him and through him and of Him' we may be perfected. He will change us from our natural state to an exalted spiritual state that is capable of obtaining a fullness of the Father's glory.  In that process we will walk that path that He walked and we will be able to serve and be His hands to bring others unto Him.


Soares, Ulisses. " Be Meek and Lowly of Heart," Oct 2013
Christofferson, D. Todd, " CES Devotional Saving Your Life." Sept 2014