How to Live a
Powerless Life
I’m not goanna lie, most of the time
I would prefer to be powerful instead of powerless.
Most of my life I’ve been told (and I’m betting you have too)
that being powerful is necessary to get ahead in the world. From the
time we are kids many of us are conditioned to seek power. For me it
started early. By second grade I was a rising ninja warrior, to be
feared on playgrounds and schoolyards far and wide.
During recess in elementary school we
used to play pretend “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” The Turtles
would battle Shredder and his cronies with pretend ninja weapons and
sometimes very real roundhouse kicks to the face. I got sent to the
principal’s office one time for giving some kid named Jimmy a
bloody nose from my sweet ninja moves. I was only in second grade
and wouldn’t see Napoleon Dynamite for nearly two decades. When
the principle asked why I gave Jimmy a bloody nose I said “I was
playing Donatello and I have good bō staff skills.” Nobody ever
wanted to play the part of Shredder on the playground, because
everybody knew that Shredder could never win. Everyone wanted
to be on the hero’s side. Everyone wanted to identify with the
winning team. Everyone wanted power.
I’m a news junkie and I have about
twelve news apps on my phone. I had a revelation the other day; the
reason I like news so much is that I feel as if knowledge and
information give me power. If I know more facts than those around me
then I feel like I have the upper hand in my conversations and
ministry situations. I spend hours some days consuming information
from sources like Time Magazine, TechCrunch, and The Washington Post.
Haven’t you heard all your life the old saying that “knowledge
is power?” We tell our teens “get a good education and you’ll
get a better job.” As a youth minister I constantly see the
pressure placed on teens by parents and teachers to perform so the
teens get into top college programs. Students are told, “If you
have a perfect GPA you can get into a better school and you’ll have
better opportunities in life.” While I don’t argue that this is
true to a point I wonder if the words “better opportunity”
actually mean “more power.”
The irony of the Gospel is this: As
much as we are obsessed with obtaining power for ourselves, we are
powerless before a Holy God, and powerless before the Cross. The
Gospel is in-congruent with seeking power for oneself. This is a rich
truth for the Lenten season. The sacrifice of Jesus, the salvation
that God brought at Calvary and the resurrection all have nothing to
do with our own power. Paul famously wrote in Romans:
“6 You see, at
just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for
the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person,
though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us.” - Romans 5:6-8
As much as we are obsessed with power
in our culture, it gives me peace to know I’m powerless before the
Almighty. Salvation is about resting in God’s grace, and trusting
in God’s power instead of our own. By sacrificing himself in the
most gruesome way imaginable, Jesus became more powerful. In
submitting himself to the powerful Roman execution system, Jesus
worked out Salvation and redemption for all humanity through perfect
sacrifice. Lent is about identifying with the suffering-servant
Savior, and recognizing our powerlessness to gain salvation on our
own. The Gospel is not about our power, but rather God’s power.
Remember the thought that the Gospel is
incongruent with seeking power for oneself? This is the hardest
truth for me to grapple with during Lent. I seek power for myself
more than I care to admit. In committee meetings at church, in my
marriage, in my relationships with colleagues, in the local
community, I seek power. Our culture is obsessed with seeking power,
and worships powerful people. Think about it. In our country:
elected officials grab for power instead of govern, militarism is
running our national budget into the ground but no one has the will
to challenge it, businesses ruthlessly compete for market share and
layoffs for middle class workers keep coming while executives get
millions in bonuses, marriages fall apart because of the financial
strain that comes from keeping up with the Jones, and wars over
worship styles and the color of the carpet split churches. Many of
our society’s problems would improve dramatically if people sought
less power for themselves, but there are two problems inherently with
this grand idea, 1.) That’s contrary to human nature, and 2.) Most
people don’t live Gospel-centered lives.
Seeking power in many ways is about
obtaining a sense of perfection. They worshipped Caesar as a god,
and he was the embodiment of power in Jesus’s day. The fact is we
are powerless to obtain perfection. Christ didn’t live by the
earthly Law of Power. Christ ushered in the Law of Love. Which law
do you live by, The Law of Power or Christ’s Law of Love? Gandhi
once said, “The day the power of love overrules the love of power,
the world will know peace.” Last time I checked Christians worship
the “Prince of Peace.” We should remember this more than once a
year at Christmas time. Do we seek God or do we seek power?
Christ sacrificed himself for us out of
love, and we are called to wrestle with the fact that the God of the
universe hung powerless, naked, and dejected on a cross as ransom for
our sin. What’s even scarier is that we are called to follow
Christ’s example of love and sacrifice. This idea should not be
taken lightly. Lent is a time to reflect on our own powerlessness in
light of who God is, and to trade our desire for power for a desire
to share God’s sacrificial love with the world. Once we reach the
point of surrendering our power, we find that relying on the power of
God is freeing. So during Lent and always, feel free to be
powerless, and rest in God’s power instead.
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