God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
The man who is meek is not even sensitive about himself. He is not always watching himself and his own interests. He is not always on the defensive... To be truly meek means we no longer protect ourselves, because we see there is nothing worth defending... The man who is truly meek never pities himself, he is never sorry for himself. He never talks to himself and says, “You are having a hard time, how unkind these people are not to understand you.”
The mere inclination to call God “Father”, apart from a sense of my own deep sinfulness, is not the work of the Spirit of God. Note this carefully. It is extremely important. Nothing is easier than to teach men to address God as “Father”. But the Spirit’s work is different in this way: the Spirit teaches men to call God “Father”, who would otherwise fear to do so because of what they know of their own sin.
