Power: Between the socket and the plug

Once has He spoken, twice have I heard, all power belongs to God – Psalm 62:11

A few days ago, we had some friends over for lunch in our home. Of course, this meant spending some time in the kitchen. Since my wife and I live alone (all our children are grown up, and they are all in their spaces), I had to help her in the kitchen. She wanted to make some “moin-moin” (bean cake) and soaked the beans she was to use. When I saw that she had so much to do, I offered to help with blending the beans. I decided to use the smoothie machine instead of our regular blender. After pouring the beans into the blending container, I covered and clicked it into place, expecting to hear the loud whirl of the grinding blade. Nothing happened. I removed it and clicked it in place again. Still nothing. For a moment, I thought the machine was spoilt. Then my eyes alighted on the wire. It was unplugged. Disconnected from the power source. It was as if a light bulb came on in my brain. Even though the machine had the inherent potential to blend because that was the purpose it was created to serve, that capacity was crippled without the deployment of power. And power could not be deployed without a connection to the source of that activating power. Then it made sense. Power is the currency of potential. But for latent energy (potential) to become kinetic (manifested power), a connection is essential.

Power serves purpose. The aberration of power is when it is deployed outside purpose. If I had plugged in the power without a need to deploy the blender’s purpose, the power would be potently available, alright, but it would be dormant and of no meaningful use at that time. Even if I clicked the container on without filling it with anything, the machine would still kick off, but it could damage the motor because it was not designed to run empty. Power finds definition, meaning and relevance in the purpose that it serves.

Your purpose is bigger than your ego because its design and intent are bigger than you.

Power is a component of the tool kit of identity, the progenitor of purpose. I used that machine instead of regular blender because as a smoothie machine, its motor is more powerful, and blends faster and smoother than that of the regular blender. Knowing WHO you are signposts what you were designed to do. The barking of a dog is an alarm system that indicates that something is amiss, like the presence of a stranger on the premises. But when a dog barks needlessly, we know something is wrong, but with the dog, not its surroundings.

To appreciate and effectively deploy power, first be rooted in your identity: “WHO am I?” If you don’t know who you are, how will you know WHAT you are wired to do?

A pen is called so because it writes. The ink in it is the power that enables it to do that, thereby legitimizing its cognomen. No matter how beautiful the pen is, when the ink is dry, the pen is useless. Of what use is a hawk that cannot hunt chickens? No animal would fear a lion that neither roars nor hunts. A soldier’s honour is not so much from the uniform he wears as it is in his battle exposure and experience. Nobody thinks much of a soldier who has never been exposed to the field of combat.

Power abuse is what happens when the one wielding power has not found an alignment between his identity and his purpose. Where there is a misalignment, the pursuit of power is always driven by a competitive desire that just wants to prove a point or make a social statement. Deployed in that mindless manner, power is capable of destroying many things around it or even the one deploying it for a purpose outside of its design. You may have heard the statement, “the best form of revenge is success”. Wrong. The power that godly success gives was never given as a weapon of vengeance but as an instrument to honour God and serve people.

The identity crisis is resolved in the purview of the original owner, custodian and dispenser of power, God. Look at identity as the socket and purpose as the plug. To activate power, there must be a connection. What was designed to be operated by electric power dispensing over 1000 watts cannot be successfully run with a car battery, even though the battery also generates power. Power is always commensurate with the assignment it was designed to deliver. If you connect electricity directly from the transmission lines into a house, you may end up burning down an entire community. Homes are powered with power drawn from transformers that have tempered the force of energy from the overhead transmission lines.

To be effective, power plays the tune of the source that produced it. All power is therefore deployed by PERMISSION. Everything on earth has a SOURCE. Only a connection with the source of power gives you access to it. Books and literacy give you access to intellectual power, with the school system as the connecting wire. Politics gives you access to political power. Diligent enterprise is the legitimate connection to financial power. However, whether you get it by education, politics, wealth, social or religious acclaim, power can never resolve your identity crisis. This is why several people regarded by society as highly successful in these areas are still miserable and lonely, with the lives of many of them falling apart while the world applauds them on the outside. The source of anything determines capacity and limits of function and in contemporary parlance, creates an operating manual around the product. With those in place, the manufacturer puts a warranty on it. The warrantee covers a period of time within which, if anything happens to the product in the course of usage according to specifications, the manufacturer has the responsibility to fix it. Acts of negligence or willful damage are excluded under the warranty.

God is your Maker. Your life comes with His warranty. Granted, you may have voided the warranty through misalignment. This is where GRACE steps in when you choose to reconnect to His plan and purpose for YOU. Whatever or whoever gives you instruction can also give you directions. When the connection is right, and the source is active, neither the socket nor the plug wonders where the power will come from because the connection naturally activates power. Whether you believe it or not, God is the power grid of creation. Christ is the transformer. His grace and your faith are the wires that make connection easy.

You are not powerless. You are just disconnected. Reconnection is not by some legalistic display of hollow piety. God’s power is plug and play, activated on demand, but through Christ, the transforming connection between identity, purpose and power. Find yourself and your purpose in God’s redemption plan, and power becomes your servant, not your master; a tool to be deployed, not a cause to be pursued.

Remember, the sky is not your limit. God is!