“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t having any.”
– Alice Walker
Author of The Color Purple
In my previous post, I wrote about women and power—how sometimes women don’t have as much as we would like and how important it is that when women get power we wield it as Jesus did.
In the context of that post, I wrote about a type of power that can be used to control circumstances and other people, to a degree. Many different kinds of power come our way, however.
We have personal power—the power to choose how we will respond to our external circumstances—the power to believe, to hope, to create, to trust, and the power to reject the evil lies that drag us down and hold us back.
We are also daughters of a powerful God, who shares his power with us:
Power from Prayer
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
James 5:16
Power from the Spirit:
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
2 Timothy 1:7
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13
And check this out!
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:16-21
What will you do with the power at work in you?