The Will to Power

"Not by power, not by might, but by my Spirit," says the Lord God of hosts (Zechariah 4). 

 

Fredrich Neitzche was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who wrote about the Uberman, the superior man who challenged all religious beliefs and sought his own health, wisdom, knowledge, creativity, and power from the world itself, not from the world beyond.  He is the source of Hitler's cult of the genetically perfect "super race," and of Ann Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

 

In Abraham Joshua Heschel's Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion, he begins with the contrast of two attitudes when man views the world (nature).  Mankind either says, "I can control/ manipulate that to my advantage," or he says, "Wow! Look at that -- Awesome!"  According to Heschel, one of my favorite writers, awe and amazement is the beginning of religion.

 

As the stories of Cain and Abel, Lamech, and the Tower of Babel show us, man's natural tendency is the "will to power, the will to conquer, the will to exalt" himself:  We shall be as gods... Let us build a tower to the heavens and make a name for ourselves (Gen.10).  Since the world began, until its very end, there will always be the tension and the struggle between the will- to- power group and the "meek," who will inherit the earth.

 

December 1, 1955.  Early evening.  A small black woman boards a public bus in Mongomery, Alabama.  She has worked all day in a dingy basement tailor shop; her ankles are swollen and her feet hurt.  She sits in the first row of the colored section until the bus fills with riders and the driver orders her to move back so that white patrons can have her seat.

 

Rosa Parks was no Dr. Martin Luther King, but if he was the Voice of the Civil Rights Movement, she was its soul.  At that moment, something strong and powerful and resistant against injustice rose up in Rosa Parks soul.  She had no "I have a dream" speech -- that was to come later; all she had was a simple word: "No."  That word ignited the Civil Rights Movement in America and helped the South change its "Will to Power" culture.  That word ignited the black population of Montgomery to boycott the buses for the next 381 days.  That word made Dr. Martin Luther King stand up and speak for the first time.  That word changed the world as we know it.

 

I Cor. 1:26-31 tells us that God uses the weak and foolish things of this world to shame the strong.  Every one of us, from the age of two, has the natural tendency to power and control:  "I do it myself!"  But submitting to the will of God, to the Spirit of God who wishes to speak through us, is the greater power.  When Jesus says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, He is not at all referring to the "weak."  There was nothing weak about Rosa Parks.  Physically, she may have resembled someone who could be pushed around, but the spirit in her was stronger than all the unjust laws of this nation and the policemen who enforced them.  The title of her autobiography is Quiet Strength.

 

The word "meek" refers to "strength under control;" the best example is that of a thoroughbred race horse that can be controlled by its rider.  It is not "unbridled" strength, but strength that can be channeled in a powerful and useful direction by the will of another.  I am often amazed by the gift of the dog to us.  Here is (in some cases) a powerful animal that could rip us apart with his teeth, and yet, he is gentle enough for a baby to pull on his fur without incident.  That is meekness -- strength that can be trusted to yield and obey. 

 

Are we strong enough to yield to God?  To allow Him to have His way in us and through us?  To allow Him to control our thoughts, words, and actions?  Can we change our world?  The empires of Egypt, of  Rome, of Nazism, of Communism, have all crumbled.  Everywhere man has set out to build a Tower of Babel has seen God confusing the speech of the leaders and dismantling the man-made Tower.  Instead, He has raised up Moses, Peter, Pope John 23, Rosa Parks, and others to build a new "tower," one built on compassion and justice and submission to the Spirit of God.