It’s natural to want power. I think often it starts as a reaction–we feel powerless, and so we seek to rectify that. We are ignored or neglected or abused or persecuted, and we want it to stop. How better to stop it than to wrest power from the oppressors, right?

We want to take control. We want to gain authority. We want to be able to say, “No,” and know it will be obeyed. We want to be the one to set down the law, to make policy, to create the rules and enforce obedience.

And yet there is a truism we all have heard, and which I’ve never heard anyone try to argue isn’t true: Power corrupts.

Sure, there are limited examples of people in power who maintain their morals, their principles, their faith. But are we ever really surprised when dark secrets come out? Or do we shake our heads and wonder why, why power has this effect on people? Don’t we always wonder what has gone wrong or why people slipped into the very habits they’d originally been against? Don’t we wonder why people focus so hard on denouncing one sin that they charge headlong into a different sin on the opposite side of the spectrum?

As my husband and I were discussing reactions people have to traumatic events in their lives, these words came tumbling out. I hadn’t thought it through, but as I said it, it made so much sense. I said, “It’s the difference between power and strength. When people hurt, when they feel powerless, they think the answer is to grab at the opposite: power. But what they really need is strength.”

Strength to endure, yes, but also strength to overcome. Strength to grow. Strength to protect. Strength to create rather than destroy.

We see this difference in political circles, yes, but not just there. We see it in a bunch of the -isms too–movements meant to combat the status quo. People want change, and so they seek the power to effect that change. And maybe that’s the best or only way to get things to be different, I don’t know…

What I do know is that power will always hurt the people it’s taken from. Power will always seek the good of one group at the expense of another. Power will always be insatiable.

Strength, though… Where power is about taking from others, strength is about you. It’s about becoming, not having. Growing, not ruling.

I’ve had many people comment on how I write strong heroines–women who are doing things that are unusual for their time or challenging prejudices or shining through adversity. This is absolutely, 100% true. But I am far from a feminist. (One of those -ists or -isms!) I believe everyone, male and female, should find their own inner strength, their faith in the God who gives them that strength, first. I believe that we MUST be strong individuals in order to be part of a healthy relationship (whether that relationship is romantic or a friendship or a family or a working relationship). I believe we should all chase our dreams, whether that dream is excelling in a field that doesn’t want to welcome us or raising our children or following in our parents’ footsteps.

I believe that strong individuals don’t need power, because they have something better: authority that they have earned. Strength breeds trust. Strength breeds commitment. Strength breeds cooperation.

Power breeds destruction. Power breeds contempt. Power breeds control.

In our society today, I see so many people–people I agree with on 98% of things–willing to compromise so many things for power. I see people blindly following those who embody that power or promise to share it for the low cost of their vote. I see people breaking relationships over the desire to be right.

And I sorrow. I grieve. Because it’s so, so easy to mistake power for strength. It’s easy to look at “winners” and want to jump on that moving train because of what they promise us.

But friends, examine the cost. Who is hurt by our gain?

The powerful will always, always crush their opponents under their heels. They will lash out and oppress the ones they first called oppressors.

The strong will protect the weak, even when they’re not on the same side. The strong will pray for their enemies. The strong will sacrifice for their oppressors to show them a better way. The strong will walk the extra mile, will give more than is demanded, will turn the other cheek.

The strong will give love in the face of hate.

What are we seeking today? Power to force our will on others…or strength to seek the will of the One who promised us His strength when we are weak?

As you no doubt realized in last week’s post, I’m reading through Acts again. This time I’m using the Word on Fire Bible, which has some amazing commentary from both modern scholars and historical ones, along with sacred art by some of the greatest masters of all time, word studies on terms in Greek or Hebrew we might be unfamiliar with, and so much more. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the experience, and quite often the little essays or paragraphs of commentary make me see something in a new light.

Reading about the conversion of Paul this time around, I first had that thought about how it only took a few words to convince Paul he’d been wrong…then I read a note from Bishop Barron that really made me pause and think.

He pointed out that every time in Scripture–every time–God appears to man, it isn’t for the sake of that one person. It’s to equip them to go out and do the work of the Lord.

Moses didn’t see the burning bush just to convince him to have faith. He saw the burning bush so that he’d be the rescuer of hundreds of thousands of people.

Samuel didn’t hear the Voice of God to reassure him of anything. He heard the Voice of God so that the priesthood would be cleansed of sin and they could better serve the people.

Abraham didn’t receive the covenant just for his own salvation. He received the covenant so that all men, all nations, could come to salvation.

Saul didn’t see that blinding light just to turn his feet onto the straight and narrow. He saw that blinding light because God wanted to use him to reach the Gentiles.

I remember once when I was a kid, maybe twelve or thirteen, the Santmyires came home for a visit. They were full-time missionaries and had served in many different countries. I think at that point they were in Bulgaria, but honestly, I don’t recall where they’d come from. I just remember being so excited that their daughter Amber, who was a year older than me, was spending the night with us. I imagine her sister, Torrey, was too–I imagine Torrey and my own sister, Jennifer, were in Jen’s room talking about older-girl things long into the night. Amber and I stationed ourselves on the sectional couch in my living room, right in front of the wide bay windows that provide a stunning view of the valley below and the mountains beyond.

I don’t remember all of what Amber and I talked about that night. I know we laughed, I know we got into all the things that mattered to us. But I distinctly remember talking about the wonders of the Lord, and how we hoped that, someday, we could see one of His angels with our own eyes. We talked about the stories we’d heard of heavenly encounters. We wondered how angels must really look, given that their first words to humans always seemed to be “Don’t be afraid.”

And then we realized that we’d turned so that we were not looking out that big window. Because we were suddenly afraid we would see an angel, and that it would be terrifying. It gave us another laugh.

But it also stuck with me. Because, I think, even as a child, I understood that seeing the power of God with my own eyes would be so much more than an interesting story. And maybe because I recognized that seeing the power of God with my own eyes would mean flipping everything on its head. Because God doesn’t appear to those who just need to keep doing what they’re doing. He doesn’t appear to those who just need a little encouragement.

He appears to people whose lives are about to be shaken to their core, flipped on their heads, and sent on a whole new trajectory. When He’s going to call them from the only home they ever knew. From the path they thought was just. From the livelihood their families depend on. From the security of a life of oblivion. He appears to people who are going to be hated, cursed, reviled, persecuted, martyred, and thrown into battle without any formal training.

God has so many ways of speaking to us, encouraging us, and equipping us. I have experienced the wonder of those ways many times in my life, and I am so grateful for them. And even those smaller ways, those less-terrifying ways…they, too, speak to this key characteristic of God’s movement:

It’s never just for us. Because faith in Him, following Him, is never just for us. It’s for the world. It’s for the lost. It’s for the Church. It’s for our neighbor. It’s for our enemy. It’s for our family.

And most of all, it’s for Him.

He doesn’t appear to show us His glory. He appears to show us how to give that glory back to Him.

I don’t know if I’ll ever see an angel, or a blinding light, or hear a voice from Heaven that sounds like thunder to those around me. But I know this–every whisper, every breeze, every sunrise that calls to my heart in His voice, has a purpose, and that purpose isn’t just for me. It’s for equipping me to do His work.