Powerlessness and Power

We want to believe that we have control and autonomy over our lives.

I’m slowly learning the lessons of how little control we have over our lives. First we were evacuated from Sierra Leone by the Embassy. Then last weekend, I dove into some cold water to chase some sunglasses and came up with atrial fibrillation with RVR. This is a common disease, but only in old people. My heart rhythm didn’t return to normal for 2 hours, so I went to the hospital and was admitted overnight. No visitors allowed due to COVID.

Consistently, the podcast I listen to that most changes the way I view the world is Everything Happens for a reason by Kate Bowler. She’s a young woman and theologian who studied the Prosperity Gospel, has small children, and was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. Her podcast deals with how to find hope in desperate situations and how to provide strength to those in need. In her episode interviewing Ari Johnson, he discusses how pressing the need is for us to improve the lives of those around us. It’s a great episode, partly because he’s a doctor in Africa: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/ari-johnson-more-than-enough/

They wrestle with a topic that I think both individuals and our nation are struggling with. It’s so easy to feel like we have no control: heart arrhythmia, stage 4 cancer, systemic racism, crushing poverty, distrust of science and medicine, portrayal of Christianity as a right wing racist homophobic group. And this hopelessness is compounded by how invisible our individual power is. We have tremendous ability to influence the health and spiritual well being of those around us. Our individual actions form our communities and shape our society.

Ari Johnson said this:

“We vastly overestimate our own control over our own lives. We are not in control of our own lives. We can not control the outcome. I also believe that we vastly underestimate our power. We vastly underestimate our power. I believe we even hide from our power, because our own power is terrifying. We are terrified of how powerful we are, particularly our power in the lives of others. Our power to cause harm. Our power to cause harm and to hurt those around us.  And our power to heal. Both of those are terrifying.

The resonance of our actions both to hurt and to heal are so much bigger than we see and so much bigger than when we estimate, and it is terrifying for us to look at that because if we look at it… it takes so much courage to look at that because once we look at it, once we embrace how powerful we are, then we are responsible. And there’s no letting ourselves off the hook. We have to take action. There’s no other way.”

It's quite a dichotomy to feel our own powerlessness, but still be responsible for all those around us. But I believe it’s what Christ calls us to. Servants don’t have any control over their own lives, but are designed to benefit all those around them.

Now I don’t know exactly how to hold these ideals together: self powerlessness with power and responsibility over others. Regardless if it’s our global community, it’s the plight of the African American, my peers and community in Sierra Leone, people with different political beliefs, or my family and church family, I have a part to play either to heal or to harm. And I also know that regardless how little control I have in my life, in either health or geography, God will guide my next steps.