When my beloved cat Dandelion was diagnosed with heart disease I became a font of panicked prayers anytime I thought her breathing looked funny. One day I was praying anxiously, asking Jesus please to heal her, and I sensed him say firmly, “You heal her.” “What?” I said. “You heal her. I’ve given you authority over disease; I’ve given you my name – use it.” (I did - and she lived for several more years, enduring two more moves, before succumbing to a tumor.)
When Jesus told his disciples to wield their faith boldly, he illustrated his point with a parable about authority: “Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say to him, ‘Make supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; you can eat and drink later’? Do you thank the servant for doing what was commanded?“
Later in the Gospel of Luke (12:37), Jesus is quoted as saying the opposite. Clearly He is making a different point here, about authority. He has given his followers authority over nature, sin, disease, demons – even death. (Over pretty much everything except other people with free will – which is why we could tell a mulberry tree to plant itself in the sea, but all the faith in the world can’t change someone's mind or heart...)
Jesus seems ticked off at the timidity of his disciples, given the authority they have as agents of God. “You are giving your challenges and obstacles way too much power. You are in charge – act like it when you pray!”
Jesus always invites us to be bold, not timid. Sometimes we let something like a common cold disable us, when we could take our God-given authority and invite the power and love of God to flow through us to bring wholeness. That’s what God does – make things whole. Sometimes we feel powerless over social systems that reinforce injustice, instead of asking how God would have us exercise our faith with the Holy Spirit in that realm.
What are you being invited to take authority over in your life? It might be a personal trait, it might be something in the natural order, or an illness or injury. You might say, "Lord, help me with this one - you have the power."
We don’t have to take authority in a “large and in charge” kind of way. We don’t have to be negative about the obstacle – we can simply stand firm in the power and love of God, unequivocal in our faith that God is in charge and God is at work through our prayers, whatever their “strength.”
The only thing we can do wrong is not pray, shrug our shoulders and walk away, going, “Oh well, that’s bigger than me.” It may be bigger than you and me, but it ain’t bigger than the God who made us.
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