AS POWERFUL AS I MAKE UP MY MIND TO BE
“I have noticed,” said Abraham Lincoln, “that a man is usually about as happy as he has made up his mind to be.”
I’ve also noticed that I am about as powerful as I make up my mind to be. This is decidedly bad news for me a good deal of the time. To paraphrase an old joke usually attributed to Gracie Allen, I’ve never felt strong, and I still do! (I think the original was, “I’ve never liked you, and I always will.”)
Maybe I need to redefine power. Perhaps even better, perhaps I need to reimagine it.
What is power? How do I imagine it?
Is power the ability to win gold in Olympic swimming events or on the balance beam? Is power being president of the United States—or at least running for that office? Obviously, if I think of power in these ways, I am not powerful. And I will never be powerful.
The truth is that I don’t want to merely be powerful in the ways I just mentioned. No, I want to be all powerful.
Of course, that is one of the attributes of God. God is the One who is described as all-powerful.
Indeed, challenging God’s knowledge (and knowledge is power, right?) was the first temptation. “You will be like God (or gods), knowing . . .” is not just the first temptation. It is the only temptation. Every other specific temptation is merely a variation on that theme.
So, how should I think of power?
Power is the strength to do what I really need to do, as a limited human being, at any given moment.
And what do I need to do at any given moment?
Merely the task at hand!
That task may be mowing the grass (which I already did on a very hot and humid day), doing the laundry (which I am doing now), grading a student’s paper, waiting tables at the restaurant where I work, resting, loving my wife, making final revisions on my PhD thesis, being kind to and patient with people, and so on.
I will have the power to do what I need to do. However, God doesn’t give the power before I need it. There is no savings account or investment portfolio for power.
But if I ask God for the power I need at this moment, and I act based on the assumption that the power will be there, then the power is, in fact, there.
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