Ablaze for God - Day 2 Devotional

“The Source of All Power”
Submitted by Heath Davis
Key text: Psalm 28:8

“We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz!” Growing up my mom had this deep seated desire to indoctrinate my sister and I with the Wizard of Oz. Each year watching this classic movie became ritual in the Davis household as we ate pop-corn and admired munchkins. Little did I realize, behind red slippers, yellow bricks and wicked witches The Wizard of Oz offered us a glimpse at a puzzling philosophical question. “Where does ultimate power and authority reside?” Dorothy and friends put their hopes in a road that would lead to the great wizard whose absolute sovereignty would right all wrongs and get Dorothy back home to Kansas. But, what they discovered beyond the veil of power was not an omnipotent wizard but an insecure, helpless little man. Toto and the gang had sniffed out a fraud!

How true of our own lives. Like the wizard we spend many of our days convincing ourselves and others that we are in control. Behind the protective curtains of our well managed world, we tend to believe that we pull are pulling the levers in the control room of life. Past victories and present success often solidify the illusion that we are powerful people.

Then disaster hits. In less than a minute the curtain of our seeming self-made world is torn in two revealing our own interior helplessness. Like the great Oz, when push comes to shove we quickly find ourselves strangely powerless.

Powerlessness is a difficult place to dwell. We feel weak, insecure and helpless. Ironically, human powerlessness is exactly where God wishes to lead us. You see there is a elementary spiritual truth in the Bible that teaches until we admit our own frailty we cannot truly depend upon divine strength. The apostle Paul affirms this truth. “God’s power”, he once stated, “is made perfect in human weakness”. Are you in a place of powerlessness? Is there a specific circumstance that appears to be beyond your ability to manage or control? If so, today you are in a great place for God’s power to be manifested in your life.

May our own powerlessness lead us on a road towards the Omnipotent One in whom all power and authority reside. “It’s not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the LORD Almighty”.