True Power is found in giving power away

​The ultimate power in life is acquired when we discover how powerful it feels to make someone else feel powerful.

The road to that discovery hasn't been easy for me. It's littered with moments where my desire to be powerful came at the expense of other people's power. It's littered with moments of believing there is only one barrel of power in this world and we are all fighting for that one barrel.

Powerful used to feel very cut throat. I guess in many places power can still be cut throat.

It can be cut throat in politics. Each party believing power is about being in charge and not helping others take charge.

It can be cut throat in parenting. Parents believing power is about being in charge and not helping their kids take charge.

It can be cut throat in the corporate world. Managers believing power is about being in charge and not leading their team to a place where they can take charge.

It can be cut throat in marriage and friendship and all relationships, where the goal can be to be in charge of the relationship and not cheering someone else on in their charge.

A big consequence of all that cut throat, it can lead one to believe that's who God is in our lives. We can come to believe in a God who wants to be powerfully in control of me instead of a God who lovingly wants me to discover the best of me.

More than ever these days, I long to help people discover their best selves. I got to this place guided by people who came into my life and helped me find my best self.

That's a jarring experience at first, experiencing people who will give up self in the interest of others. Experiencing cheer leaders and not cheer gatherers.

But then you come to discover, these people don't look like they are giving up anything at all.

They look content.

They look fulfilled.

They look powerful.

I see God that way these days. Like, the more I move in the directions I'm capable of moving - the more I live out my fullest potential - the more powerful God comes to look and feel in my life.

God goes about his work being a cheer leader, not a cheer gatherer. And in turn, there's no one I cheer more loudly for than God.

I suppose we could all be a little more like God that way. A little more like the orchestra conductor. Whose greatest joy is seeing and hearing us all sound our best together by playing our best as individuals.

But that doesn't start by a longing for individual power.

It starts by being willing to give power away.