One thing I know is power. I have felt it, wielded it, and been caught up in it. Power is a force that I have found from within and without. I have experienced the raw power of nature and the hidden power of fear. Both the power of the ocean and the power of a broken heart.
But the brokenness within is a power that is hard to tame. Hearts break in the things that we think God’s love won’t touch. And we get stuck. We get stuck in depression, addiction, self-inflicted and harmful patterns of living and thinking. We get stuck thinking this world must have a simpler way to live.
So, we search, and we get stuck trying to buy happiness, chasing an identity in this world through our own efforts and accomplishments; we get stuck in chasing relationships and comparison to try and find comfort and belonging. All the while we get stuck under these strongholds from what’s seems to be these hidden shadow figures that are hell-bent on our destruction and calamity in life. Our lives seem to radically spiral out of control until we feel like we are losing our minds and we again get stuck.
We can’t sleep, we have compulsive thoughts and actions that seem to work against the very things we know to be right and true. Deep down we cry out and we think to ourselves, “Is there anyone that understands what I am going through?” Pressures intensify as I believe that there is no one who could possibly understand my struggle. And if I were to bring it up, I would certainly be judged and cast out!
So here we stand, stuck! Our hearts are crying out, but we feel like we are living like a skeleton of ourselves. So, we just exist. We exist as if the point of this life is to just make it through. All the while there seem to be glimmers of light that shine like moonlight through an overcast sky, piercing through the clouds on a torrent river. As drawn to this light as we are, we feel too tossed by the waves to ever reach any glimmer of hope. So, we stand, stuck.
And we stay stuck until the clouds roll back, and the ever-present moon is revealed shining the light of the sun for us to see. We then find ourselves stuck again, only this time darkness is subject to the light. We can now begin to move because light has shown all around us and freedom prevails. We run to the nearest dock we can find excited and optimistic to set out on the river. We grab a raft and set out on the wild torrential water with just enough light to see what is right in front of us. All the while our Guide speaks, calling out to us: Move! Move! Move! I will command the waves on your behalf! Move! You are no longer stuck! You’re no longer alone! Your no longer subject to darkness. Move!
Our Guide calls out direction. Move left, move right. But slowly the Guide’s voice begins to be more and more clear. We find our movement along the river matching what He says before He ever says a thing, and we realize that our hearts that were once trapped in stone and our life that was once a skeleton of who we felt we were are now alive for what seems like the first time.
With light for our eyes to see, a guide for us to hear, and flesh for us to feel, we begin to see that we were never supposed to be stuck. We realize we were meant to float down this river with our Guide, but more than that we realize that the Guide has given this river to us. We now have the power to command the wind and waves fully in sync with the will of the Guide. The torrent of the river then doesn’t seem so scary. Rather we see it as a God-sized current leading toward our best.
Our Father in heaven did everything He could when Jesus Christ died on the cross. He bankrupted heaven! And our Father did not bankrupt heaven so that we would be stuck! Our Father bankrupted heaven for freedom and relationship with Him as he guides us on this journey of life. Each step with Him, He speaks to us about how much we win in Him!
So, when those clouds try to block out the light, and the waves threaten their power to capsize your raft, stand! Stand in confidence that you are what He says you are, and He will do in and through you what He says He will do. And because of the great price He paid, there is no power of darkness that can harm you, no worldly power that can overshadow, and certainly no fleshly motivation that can cast a shadow upon your Father’s love for you.
The great secret to having power is, when you lose it, you actually find it. When we believe what the Father says, feel what He feels, and will what He wills, we put down our power. Do you want power? Choose to know nothing! And choose to be nothing! Only then are you able to pick up true power because it is not your own.
Paul had a weakness he spoke of and he prayed three times for God to take it away. But God told him “my grace is sufficient for you, for my POWER is perfected in your weakness”. If you want to gain God’s power, be like Paul and rejoice in your weakness and know, that God’s power can then work in you.