"I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to him be the glory..."
--Ephesians 3

"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline."
--2 Timothy 1

This word, "power" has been on my heart and my mind a lot recently. Power. At dictionary.com, there are 32 different entries for his word alone-- each meaning something slightly different, applied to various contexts and uses. Over the last few weeks it seems that many instances come up in conversation and circumstance dealing with the powers of darkness and the power of light. I've been thinking a lot about my position as being in control and giving up control, contemplating what action I ought to take over my own circumstances and carefully weighing how and when I ought to be intentional about taking a step back when my natural tendency is to step in and act. I have found myself growing in the desire to simply remain silent rather than filling space with unneccessary sound, finding peace in stillness and openness to whatever is.

And I have also been considering this Spirit of Power that we are told that the Lord gives-- this power that Paul presents as the antithesis to timidity. A few weeks ago, someone said "Control is the antithesis of trust," as we discussed what it means to be a "people constituted by patience and hope." And I find it interesting to compare these two ideas, power versus control, in the context of trust and as Paul presents power in relationship to grasping the love of the Father. As the Lord has been working deep in me, I am coming to see the embrace of this power as the deepest act of trust that we can put in our Maker.

This morning, as I revisited this passage in Ephesians, I noticed something new. Have you ever considered why Paul might pray that we be "may have power... to grasp... the love of Christ?" Have you ever thought about the need to intentionally fight to understand and take in the love of someone else? Later in this same book, Paul writes, "Our struggle is not against the flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Eph 6:12) What is it that we are up against here in the kingdom? How can we even begin to understand the depth and otherness of this life that God intended us for in the Garden? It is certainly not what is appears on the surface of our fig-leaf lives.

Power. When I started writing this blog a hundred years ago in the basement on a summer afternoon, I saw it as a space in which I could work out this longing for freedom, an entrance into the grace of a God and Savior who invites us to take the leap into an anti-gravity life, a nothing-to-loose, risky life that promises no disappointment. And here I am, years later, miles away, still learning what kind of power I have to grasp the width, the depth, the height, and the extreme goodness of a love I still do not understand. I am learning about the power to hold on to a Father that never lets go, seeking the power to say no to the Liar who tells me that the shadows of this world are worth my full weight. I think Paul is reminding us to take hold of the power we have to grasp this love because we need the strength to look past all that tempts but does not satisfy; we need the power to know that we have everything we need to walk through the flames and out the door into the sunshine of the true, deep love of the father. We need to be reminded of the power we have over the lies that tell us that our worth and securtiy are found in circumstancial advantages, opinions of others, or ability to gain the approval of those around us. We need to be reminded that we have the power to sort out the broken messes of our relationships and we need the power to see down below the surface to "know this love that surpasses knowledge." This road we walk and this kingdom for which we were made is not for the faint of heart. The gate is narrow and hard to find, Jesus reminds us, and few will enter it. But those of us who respond to the working of the Lord and his gift of power, will certainly not be disappointed.

I love the way that Eugene Peterson interprets the ending to this particular passage. He writes, "God can do anything, you know-- far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around by by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us." Perhaps more than anything else, I have been reminded time and time again of how the Lord works deeply within us, silently and invisibly, changing us into who we are supposed to be, one cell at a time.

A few months back, I read a passage Annie Dillard wrote in "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" that has created an image in me that I cannot shake. She begins a seven-page painting with this:

"I am sitting under a sycamore by Tinker Creek. I am really here alive on the intricate earth under tress. but under me, directly under the weight of my body on the grass, are other creatures, just as real, for whom also this moment, this tree, is 'it.' Take just the top inch of soil, the world squirming right under my palms. In the top inch of forest soil, biologists found "an average of 1,356 living creatures present in each square foot, including 865 mites, 265 psring tails, 22 millipedes, 19 adult beetles and various numbers of 12 other forms... Had an estimate also been made of the microscopic population, it might have ranged up to two billion bacteria and many millions of fungi, protozoa and algae-- in a mere teaspoon of soil. The chrysalids of butterfies linger here too, folded, rigid, and dreamless. I might as well include these creatures in this moment, as best I can. my ignoring them won't strip them of thier reality, and admitting them, one by one, into my consciousness might heighten mine, might add thier dim awareness to my human consciousness, such as it is, and set up a buzz, a vibration like the beathing ripples a submerged muskrat makes on the water, from this particular moment, this tree..." (Dillard, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," p. 95-96)

I am struck by this imagery that does continue in some detail for a number of pages beyond this passage because it is a reminder to me of all that the Lord does and continues to do under the ground of our lives. We have all the external things, our day jobs, the clothes that we pick out in the morning, the phone calls that we make, the compliments that we give and recieve, the food that we buy at the grocery store and how we choose to prepare it and who we share it with. We have the places that we drive to and the places that we walk and the pursuits we pursue. And there are all the things that we can see with our eyes and all of the unknowns that we wait to be revealed, but the truth is that there are "865 mites, 265 psring tails, 22 millipedes, 19 adult beetles and various numbers of 12 other forms" in the square foot of soil beneath our feet-- the work of God is infinite and unknowable. And all we can do is trust that he loves us enough to make us a part of it, that we are a part of his redemption and that he is making us into something beautiful as we continue to walk the tension of his great mystery.

There is something about the creativity of all of this that makes me feel deeply connected to the truth of life. There is nothing that gets me going quite as much as knowing that things are being created, that things are being made out of nothing, that suddenly there was, out of the void, a garden bursting with life. There is something exciting to me about knowing that as I am taken apart, something new and wonderful is being refashioned-- and I have the power to enter into this remaking, that the scraps are not left unmoveable and there is an infinite amount of goodness that comes from the stab of pain and the squeeze of the clay.