God’s Strength is NOT About Power
Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the creator of the ends of the earth.
He doesn’t grow tired or weary.
His understanding is beyond human reach,
giving power to the tired and reviving the exhausted. Isaiah 40:28-29, CEB
God doesn’t hoard his strength.
That is a radical message- probably more radical than it feels. Significantly more radical. We live in a day and age where strength is almost always “lorded.” Where to have power is to abuse power and where the weak want power so they can, in a sense, become the ones doing the lording.
The radical message of faith is quite different than all of the “earthly” quibbles over who has the power, strength, and force to call the shots and keep people in their places.
God doesn’t hoard his strength.
He gives his power to those in need, not so that they may become powerful rulers who can lord their power over others but so that they simply find the strength to persevere.
Radical.
At least two things about this are radical.
The idea that strength and power is simply offered to those who need it. It’s not treated like a finite resource but something that is freely available.
Strength and power are not given to one person at another person’s expense.
I hope you see how radical both of these are in a world where power is a finite resource that needs to be protected and guarded against and where power always comes the expense of another.
In our world, one must go down for another to come up. God’s way of being is quite different. His hand goes down, and everyone is brought up.
At the heart of positive faith is a God who is working on behalf of all. To ensure that all people live equally well (neither unequally well nor equally poorly).
That is the kingdom that is coming. A kingdom where all live both well and harmoniously together. There is no model for what is coming. We’ve never seen this before. In fact, I suspect even saying God wants all people to live harmoniously together isn’t without controversy.
God is working on this not because He doesn’t care or is somehow ignorant of all the horrible things humans have done to each other. He’s not asking people to live in deep resentment with one another. He’s making it possible for us to live together so well that we will no longer resent our pain- it will be transformed into the unique kind of forgiveness that happens only when pain and suffering are no more.
And so we pray: May your kingdom come, may your will be done.
