but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and Samaria, and as far as the remotest part of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; (Psalm
23:4)
We watched a
teaching session by Dallas Willard Sunday morning, and one of the things he
said that resonated with me was about power. He talked about what might happen
if God gave us the power to raise the dead. He noted that it would likely
change our lives. Reporters would come to the door. People who needed to be
healed or who had loved ones they wanted raised from the dead would find us. There’s
a small part of me that thinks, “Cool!”
There’s a huge part of me
that wants to hide. In fact, when I started writing in 2013, the story I started
with was about a young woman who wanted to be invisible. She discovered a performance
reading group and discovered that she could be invisible by telling stories. I
can’t tell you the number of times I prayed, “Father, do I really have to write
my life in this story again and more?” because
it seemed to me that so much of the story came out of my life.
We probably all have this response
to power. If we don’t think too much about what goes with the power, it sounds
cool, but when we consider all of the things that go along with power – loss of
freedom, the demands of needy people, everyone watching to see what you’re
going to do next and (in some cases) how they can use it to their advantage. This
is part of why I decided to use a pseudonym for my writing. I want to be able
to be “invisible,” to just be myself when I want to but at the same time, I
want to be able to put on my “author mask” and do something that leads them to
the obvious question of “Who was that masked woman?”[1]
So, it’s the time of year
when I once again find myself thinking about where I’m supposed to go, what I’m
supposed to do, and the whole Abraham leaving his home and family and going to
a place he did not know bit. Am I willing to go to power? Am I willing to
become powerful on God’s terms, not mine – and not “theirs”? Am I willing to do
the things I don’t want to do, believing that I will be given blessings as a result?
Some people would say, “Heck
yeah!” Some might make it more emphatic. But my hands are over my face. I don’t
know. Ultimately, I’m going to go if that’s where He leads. He hasn’t let me
wrong yet. But it’s as much a valley of the shadow of death as any other
challenge.
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