POWER IN WEAKNESS

'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)

Power in weakness...how this goes against the tide of modern day thinking, and in truth, challenges some of my own on a regular basis. In my personal experience based on my own life and the people that have touched it, I have seen how many of us view power as something that can only be obtained once we've achieved greatness or have eliminated all imperfections and limitations within ourselves and in our environment and circumstances. Sometimes we may think that power lies in other people, but not in ourselves. Or we may believe that we only have access to power when we make a certain amount of money or obtain a certain status in our career. But the truth is, we already have access to power without any of those things.

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'What GOOD am I and what WORTH do I have unless I achieve or obtain these things? Everything and everyone around me screams that I must BE and DO certain things before I have any 'power'!'

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Ok, so you might be thinking...well, you don't know me and you don't know my situation. You don't know how many mistakes that I've made in the past. You don't know what my limitations are; that I may be blind, crippled, or have a speech impediment. You don't know that I never graduated from high school. You don't know that when I attempt to speak in front of other people that I get so nervous that I begin to trip over my own words and feel like passing out. You don't know that my marriage lies in ruins and none of my relationships with people ever seem to work out right and are checkered with chaos and conflict. So where's the power in all of this? What GOOD am I and what WORTH do I have unless I achieve or obtain these things? Everything and everyone around me screams that I must BE and DO certain things before I have any 'power'!

And....you are absolutely right. I don't know your circumstances and I know the message that pervades nearly every segment in our society and is lauded across the media and advertisements that says that we only have power if we drive a certain car, make a certain amount of money, wear a certain brand of clothing, attend the right social events, live in the right neighborhood, send our children to the right school, have the right hairstyle, fit in the right size jeans, have the greatest looking spouse, climb the corporate ladder fast enough, give to enough organizations and people, serve on all the right committees, and on and on and on it goes. We've bought into a system that sells the idea of power as if it were an exterior accessory and that we are not good enough or complete unless we have it. And what we have failed to realize is that true power never works from the outside in, but from the inside out.

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'We've heard and have seen these messages for so long now that many of us are drowning in it and can barely keep our heads above the water trying to live up to all of this!'

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The truth is that any power that we DID have, we have just given away because we have believed the power exists in something exterior to ourselves. There is no power in this. What we have mistakenly equated with power amounts to nothing more then an illusion of power. Many of us have spent our entire lives chasing after and grasping for what amounts to nothing more then a mirage; an illusion of a grand oasis of power and plenty in the desert of our lives. The oasis can be a representation of anything or anyone that allures us with promises of power and plenty once we have 'arrived'. So we spend our lives crawling on our bellies in the dust, dying of thirst, and wasting all of our time, focus, and energy on reaching this oasis of promise only to find that it either remains so elusive that we never manage to get there, or if we do, it doesn't quite live up to the heights of power and promise we had imagined it would be and so we find ourselves chasing after the next oasis off in the distance. Either way, instead of finding a refreshing well that quenches our thirst, the power that we had hoped to obtain once we arrived, or a better way of life in general; we find yet another fistful and mouthful of sand.

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'What we have mistakenly equated with power amounts to nothing more then an ILLUSION of power.'

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Can you see yourself in any of the following scenarios?

•I've worked my hands to the bone at the same job, but no matter how hard I work, I never seem to make enough money to make ends meet.

•My goal was to become a millionaire, and I did it. But once I made my first million, I found that I wasn't satisfied with it. It still wasn't enough and I only wanted more.

•If only I could find love and get married, then I will be happy.

•Once we can finally afford that house we've always dreamed about, then we will be happy.

•I am no longer happy in my marriage. I deserve better then this. Maybe I settled for too little. I picked the wrong person and so I think it's time to get out while I still can. Once I find the right person, then I will finally have all of the love and happiness I deserve.

•If only I looked like him/her, could afford the right clothes, lose enough weight, have the right hair style; then people will admire me and want to be with me.

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•If only....(fill in the blank)....THEN I will...

*be happy....

*be successful...

*be free....

*stop and smell the roses...

*slow down long enough to notice my children and spouse...

*be able to show people genuine love...

*be free to show people that I care and do nice things for them...

*finally matter....

*finally receive praise from that someone special....

*finally be considered important and taken seriously....

*NEVER BE HUNGRY AGAIN! (...the famous lines spoken by Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With The Wind)

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Can I tell you a little secret? None of the power that you are seeking is 'OUT THERE'. It isn't located on the other side of the planet, in another part of town, or in any other person no matter how powerful, famous, and rich they are. You don't even need to head for the stars and travel to the other side of the galaxy or universe in order to find it. This power you seek lies so much closer then that. So close, that you don't have to take a step in any direction to find it, because it is already within YOU.

Shocking...isn't it?

Oh, but I can already hear the voices in your head crying out in disbelief! How could I have any power? I can't even speak up for myself! People walk all over me all the time! I live in a wheelchair and I can't even walk! I don't have any skills and I don't even have a job! I've got no money, no house, no car, no friends, no life! I can't find ANYTHING about myself that even REMOTELY resembles any kind of power at all! This is RUBBISH!

And if you are thinking along those lines right at this moment, then you are closer then you think to tapping into the power you already possess!

However, lest you mistakenly believe that I wish to gather all of us together and host the next Pity-Party Gala, please let me clarify. Although the focus of this writing is based on power in our weaknesses, I am not selling my message as if it were a subscription to Victim Glorification magazine. This is not a prescription for victim mentality at all, although we may have seen people misuse their own victim status in order to manipulate others and as an excuse to not live up to their full potential. We may have even used our own handicaps and limitations as a crutch and an excuse ourselves in order to avoid taking responsibility for ourselves at various times along the way.

My first objective is to expose the lie that says that we only have access to power once we have reached a certain measure of achievement or have amassed a certain quantity of material possessions. This is based on the false idea that happiness, power, and life only exist outside of ourselves so that we spend our lives searching for these things and hinging all of our happiness and worth on them. We put our lives on hold because we believe that someone or something else has the power we so desperately need in order to feel good about ourselves. But as long as we continue to believe that true power lies in everything and everyone around us rather then it's TRUE source, we will never be satisfied even if we manage to achieve and obtain the status and possessions we so desperately seek! And we will NEVER be satisfied with anything as long as we go on believing that we do not have any amount of power within ourselves.

I believe that one of the keys to freedom is when we recognize that all that we see outside of ourselves is a manifestation of the power that resides WITHIN all living things, but we have mistakenly misplaced the source to be that which is simply a manifestation of power rather then the power itself. This is modern day idolatry at it's finest. We are merely worshipping what has been created rather then the one true Power that created it. It is my hope to expose the futility in doing this so that we may draw from the TRUE source of power from which all of our strength, success, happiness, and life resides!

So if we recognize that true power does not reside outside of ourselves but comes from within, am I saying that we, ourselves, are the source of this power? No. How can that which has been created say that we have created ourselves? We did not give ourselves life. It was given to us by something far greater than even ourselves. For we have been fearfully and wonderfully made. We were carefully designed and like a tender seedling, planted in a field carefully selected and chosen by the One who made us. We, ourselves, are a manifestation of this awesome Power and our main purpose is to be an accurate reflection of this Power in the manner in which we live, move, and have our being.

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'My destiny is to create more consciousness. The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.' ~Jung

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