Power for Good

Today let's try to lay aside our idea that everyone's flawed and no one can be trusted completely because of the bad lurking in their corners. We live fully aware that those we love have weaknesses and those weaknesses, acted on, become our pain. We’ve seen evidence of this in every close relationship we’ve ever had and even more evidence in relationships we observe around us. No one's completely unselfish; no one's struggle-free.

This makes it freakin' hard to believe God is pure goodness. Within the world we see, we have no examples of a completely good essence. Besides the written record of Jesus’ life, we won't witness such a person. So it’s a leap to believe outside our environment (a world with evil), this is a reality. Not only is it a reality – it’s the norm.

I’ve been braced for years, waiting for God’s Achilles heel to strike, but what if today I finally said, “Hey, I can’t see anything that looks like that around here, but I’m going to take the leap and believe it could be different elsewhere. I’m going to believe God is good, all the way through.” The Bible says he’s love, he’s light – not even a shadow in him. Sometimes I just have to try truth on to see how it feels. It doesn't always feel true at first, but when it begins to dovetail with the truthiest truths I know, it migrates from a profession of faith to an experience.  

And boy, do I want an experience. I want to feel ultimately safe and I want it to vibrate all the way to my root chakra. No more feeling threatened all the time. I want to feel like Jesus did when he slept through the storm and Peter - sleeping away the night before his execution. When you sustain a lot of hurt, especially the traumatic type (which is a much wider range than you may imagine), something in your gut shifts. Deep in the place where you know that you know what you know, you suddenly feel exposed, doomed, and frantic. Whatever safety you enjoyed previously in life is ripped away and now you wait, running to and fro, trying to avoid the pain that rains down.

But that sense of safety, which some of us can barely remember having, was truer than what the trauma teaches. That's probably the entire strategy behind trauma - to make us believe the safety God offers is a shabby excuse for it. But what wrapped Jesus in enough security to sleep through the storm? What quieted Peter's heart so he could sleep in prison? God must've restored Peter's sense of safety and because of it, his hope gleamed so brightly, he didn't need anything else. 

Hope for what? Hope his life had significance and value. Hope his soul was safe in Jesus. Hope in Christ's ultimate power and ability to 

work

it

out.

If our faith grabs onto the hope that God's good, we can also grasp his power as our hope. Power's scary if it's corrupted. In fear he's not all that good, I've discounted his power. I didn't want to deal with the idea there's an all-powerful entity who would likely hurt me if he had a bad day. So you almost can't abide the truth of God's power without accepting that his power is always, always, always love.

When I see him that way, I find my mouth hanging open. He's a freakin' warrior and he's fighting for me. Veins bulging, arms swinging, tearing through anything that separates us. He holds nothing back, there's nowhere he won't go and no limit to what he's risked for me. His fierceness isn't ominous because it's coming to my rescue.

And I need rescued. Rescued from self-hate and a purposeless existence and terror.

He is good.

He is powerful.

And he's coming for me.