Article February 15, 1993 Issue

True assertiveness

What is the most effective way to stand up for your rights?

Harriet Barry Schupp

In our local newspaper recently there was an article headlined "Do you need an assertiveness training class?" The article asks, "Would you stand up and confront someone when your rights are being violated? Or are you the type to rationalize your submissiveness and call it humility?"^{From The Times Picayune (New Orleans), by Salvatore Didato .} Strange as it may seem, this article made me think of Moses. Although assertiveness is a very current topic, how to defend one's position is a problem as old as humanity.

Moses certainly stood up to Pharaoh when the rights of the Israelites were being violated. He claimed their freedom from slavery in Egypt and led them across the Red Sea on their journey to the Promised Land. Yet the Bible says of Moses that he was "very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth." How was it possible that this strong and successful leader was also the meekest of men? An experience related in the book of Numbers is very revealing on this point.

At one time during the Israelites' forty-year journey in the wilderness, Miriam and Aaron, Moses' sister and brother, began to speak against him and to challenge his position as God's spokesman. This surely seemed the time for Moses to assert himself—to speak up and defend himself. But the Bible tells no tale of politicking, intrigue, infighting ... no jockeying for position on Moses' part. Instead it is at this point in the narrative that we read the remarkable statement quoted above concerning Moses' meekness. As the Bible tells it, the result of this meekness, as well as Moses' faithfulness, was that God maintained Moses' leadership position.

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