an honest inventory of power
How might you live today if you knew that the spirit in you is great and powerful?
1 John 4: 4
“Little children, you are from God and have conquered them, for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
I notice that this is addressed to us as children, not to our adult personas. It is talking to our small-feeling, perhaps scared, childlike presences.
I often feel disempowered and scared, ignoring or forgetting the power, agency and influence I have in the world. I navigate spaces and relationships with an attitude of, “I’m just little ol’ me,” forgetting the ways that I’ve grown and changed over the years.
The challenge is that when we acknowledge the power we have, we are bound to misuse it, either by underutilizing our influence or by unintentionally overpowering others. It reminds me of the traditional confession in which one asks for forgiveness for harm “by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.”
How do you take an honest inventory of your power? How do you tap into the part of you that isn’t a little child but is connected to power “greater than the one who is in the world?”
How might you live today if you knew that the spirit in you is great and powerful?