Disengaging from the lies of powerfulness and powerlessness

A church of two persons — a one-to-one ministry where two people are discipled by the Holy Spirit even as they share very intimate details about their lives in a trusted space. With each other.

That’s a vision for a cross-shaped ministry of God.

The church has two clear problems with which to contend. Powerlessness and powerfulness. Notice which one I put first. There is far too much powerlessness and too much reliance on powerfulness — not just within the church, but everywhere.

We all have temptations to power. It makes us feel good. None of us is comfortable being in the vulnerable position of feeling powerless. Nobody volunteers to be rendered powerless.

But that’s exactly where Jesus is!
At the site of powerlessness.
Ready to minister to us.
But only if we willingly go there.
Only if we defy temptation to power.

Deceptions of Powerlessness

It’s a lie we succumb to when power is lorded over us, whether it’s a person, our past, a susceptible position we hold, etc. When we’re rendered powerless, most of the time we don’t recognise it. We just feel disempowered, disabled, dysfunctional, disillusioned, and possibly also defiant — and very much often the latter. We’re apt to swing between the poles of accepting we’re powerless, a state that needs to be challenged, and defying our powerlessness by denying it and striving to make the opposite error — to become powerful.

Deceptions of Powerfulness

It’s a lie. It takes us away from the Presence of God. This is equally, if not more dangerous, especially to and for others, than being powerless. Powerfulness is a really nice feeling. It’s where confidence comes from. But if our powerfulness emanates out of powerlessness, i.e. as a response of feeling powerless, we have created it out of fear, and that power will be used to deny key truths and inevitably to abuse people.

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The midground we’re invited into is the embodiment of God’s power through surrendering both powerlessness and powerfulness to our Lord.

As we commune in the moment of God’s Presence, reminding ourselves that feeling or being powerless or powerful are errors, we cling to a third place of feeling and being.

Neither powerless nor powerfulness
is the sweet spot of God’s Presence.

The cross bridges the divide.
The cross must be our aim.

Only at the cross does our powerlessness bring us to God.
Only at the cross is our powerfulness used for good.

This third place we can call defiance, but not in a negative way. Defying that we feel or are powerless, by denying it, pushes us toward grappling for power; states of feeling that make us dangerous for ourselves and others.

But defying both these extremes — resisting feeling or being fixed in states of powerlessness and powerfulness — means we’ll have the desire and capacity to love others well, be at peace, experience joy, practice patience and kindness, be faithful and gentle, and exercise self-control.

Walking in the sweet spot of the Lord is about resisting the idol of power.

Acknowledgement to a fellow sojourner, my friend Owen.