How Powerful Are You?

Imagine yourself being the most powerful person on the planet.

What would you do with your great power for the world?

If you could do anything with your power, what would you do for your friends and family?

And if you were filled with immense power, what would you do to your enemies, to those that threaten you, or have actually brought suffering upon you and those you love?

Most of us have more personal power than we realize.

We don’t realize what kind of powers we have, nor do we comprehend how we are affecting those around us through our power.

Power is the capacity and ability to get things done, to influence others and affect their lives.

How do people develop personal power?

Some people have and develop a powerful spirit or personality that they use to get what they want or to get others to act.

Some people have and develop a powerful mind and intellect that they use to get things done with or through others.

Some people have and develop a powerful body through beauty and strength to get others to do what they want.

Any combination of this power in spirit, mind, body is true of each of us. We all find ways to use and develop whatever natural power we have been given to influence our surroundings to our favor.

We use the power of our personality, our smarts, our appearance and talents in ways that primarily benefit ourselves but also ideally benefit those connected to us.

Most people have never done a power-inventory, taking stock of what kind of influence they have in spirit, mind, and body. It’s hard to quantify.

But there is a way to measure it – through its effect on others.

Do the people around you grow in gratitude and dignity?

Does their personal power expand? Do creativity and freedom flourish?

Are people becoming more patient and kind because of how you use your power?

Does mercy prevail? Do commitment, faithfulness, and loyalty grow stronger?

Or does the opposite of any of this grow in others like malignant cancer because of how you use your power?

For Christians, the power of God the Father and Creator of the heavens and earth, evidenced in the resurrection of the crucified Lord Jesus Christ, is within us through the Holy Spirit.

Christians in community, as part of the church, which is the body of Christ Jesus on earth, are the most powerful people in the universe. 

How are Christians using their power – does it imitate how Christ used his power?

Saint Paul writes to Christians living in and around Ephesus, which was the most powerful city of the Roman Empire at the time. It was a combination of New York City as a political, financial, and arts powerhouse, but also like Chicago with its agricultural and labor power, and also like Los Angeles with its diversity, climate, and personality.

Ephesian Christians were tempted to accumulate great power through many different sources and to use it for their own gain and that of the Empire.

But Paul has a different vision for them:

“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you his Spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which God has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of the Lord’s power for us who believe, according to the working of God’s great power.

God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.

And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”
[Letter to the Ephesians, 1.17-23 / NRSV]

For Christians, we see in Christ Jesus the most powerful man ever to walk the earth. We read about how Jesus used his immensely great power in the New Testament.

Christ Jesus leveraged his power in such a way that the poor in spirit were blessed and those who mourned were comforted.

His peacemaking power threatened the political and economic authority of the elites who dominated the region, keeping the people of the land destitute.

Jesus used his power to forgive enemies, to welcome outcasts, to challenge corruption, to foster reconciliation, and advocate for justice.

Jesus poured out his power into others, empowering them to proclaim good news and bring healing to any who wanted it.

Jesus demonstrated sacrificial power, risking his life in order to help set others free. It was atoning, taking on the sins and afflictions of humanity, redeeming humans corrupted by power and restoring us with a new purpose for a new kind of community in the world.

How powerful are you? How are you using your power in the world? In your community? 

If you could become part of the most powerful body of people in the world, what would you want to see accomplished?

Keep Running

What are you running from?

What are you running to?

These can be connected questions, but the answers reveal distinctly different destinations.

It’s entirely appropriate to keep running away from situations that are evil, toxic and dangerous.

Unless you’ve been called to be light in the darkness, sent to heal and save what others are poisoning and destroying.

In that case you are running from safety and comfort, from security and certainty.

Sometimes running away is the wrong choice, especially when your escaping makes you more vulnerable to predators and more wrong choices.

But sometimes running away is the right choice, especially when you’ve got strong arms to run into that will do what’s right and get you back on your feet again with dignity and honor.

We can do our running with our body, but we can also keep running away in our mind and spirit. We can disengage from difficultly honest conversations. We can close our heart to painfully frustrating relationships.

Running away can be a way to avoid ourselves, the “you” that is being revealed amidst suffering.

And we can keep running to others, not just with our body, but also with our mind and spirit – thinking of them when they are apart from us, praying for them in the tough times and the good ones.

These writings from the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament help frame my take on running away and running towards:

As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!” [Genesis 19:17]

I keep running in the path of your commands, for you have broadened my understanding. [Psalm 119:32]

“…but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will keep running and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” [Isaiah 40:31]

“Flee from Babylon! Run for your lives! Do not be destroyed because of her sins. It is time for the Lord’s vengeance; he will repay her what she deserves.” [Jeremiah 51:6]

This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.) [Jonah 1:10]

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Keep running in such a way as to get the prize.” [Saint Paul in 1Corinthians 9:24]

Maybe it’s just part of getting older and having pastored for almost two decades, there are times when it becomes more and more confusing whether I am running from the Lord (like Jonah) or running to him (like the Psalmist).

It was a long and difficult season of determining if and how to leave the church I was pastoring. During a correspondence at that time with an acquaintance who I had seen at a half-marathon race, he ended a message to me with the phrase “Keep running!”

You never know how those kind of random epitaphs will strike people. This one struck in me a deep chord of reflection and conviction. If I was going to keep running (like Isaiah), I didn’t want it to just be in a direction driven by fear, timidity, and anger (like Jeremiah and in Genesis).

If I was going to run, I wanted it to be towards the Lord (like Saint Paul) such that my striving produced in me love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and temperance.

How about you? 

What are you running from?

What are you running to?

What will you become while you’re running?

May the beauty, truth, justice, and love of Christ Jesus be more real in you when you’ve finished your running.

Keep running.

Solutions To Your Problems…

“…the solution of a problem always demands that we descend to a deeper level.”

With whatever problems you are facing in your personal life, at work, or in our society – or maybe all three – it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and defeated.

Even when you feel burdened, there are actions you can take to help turn the tide in a positive direction.

Simple problems require simple solutions, but what about stubbornly complex problems? What positive action can we take to find the wisest solutions and get moving forward again?

The following paragraphs have been transformative for me on how I interpret the problems I face and how I go about finding solutions.

May it be a helpful, healing perspective for you as well.

“…the solution of a problem always demands that we descend to a deeper level.

We must leave the level of conflicts and dilemmas to the level of self-examination under the searching light of God.

We then can understand that a dilemma is a sign; it is a sign that there are deeper discoveries to be made, a new order to perceive which will transform the whole nature of the problem.

True meditation is this descent to the deeper level under God’s direction.

There it is that really new inspirations come, to set us free from our dilemmas, to transform our relationships with ourselves, with others, with God.

Under every dilemma is hidden several fears: the fear of openly resisting, the fear of giving in, the fear of fighting, and the fear of being beaten.

It is love which drives back fear.

All is not thus solved.

Everyday we shall find ourselves before the most perplexing questions, even if we sincerely seek for divine guidance.

Yet these can be for us an opportunity for deeper, inner experience through which alternatives we thought to be incompatible may be resolved in new synthesis.

We used to set doubt in opposition to faith, acceptance to rebellion, self-affirmation to self-surrender, and resistance to giving in. We do so no longer.

Here it is that real life always unites into a marvelous harmony those movements of the inner person which we judged to be contradictory. They are shown to be complementary.

The real believer is not the man who hides from himself those persistent doubts deep down but irremovable. The opposite is the truth: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

The strong man is not he who hides his own failings from himself, but he who knows them well.

Surrendering our life to God is at the same time our supreme giving-in and our supreme act of self-affirmation!”

~Dr. Paul Tournier, To Resist or To Surrender, pgs 60-1