Power Under Control

Marianne Williamson in her book Return to Love, says, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.” I love this quote and what it teaches me.

For one thing, it is about humility. Too often we have a false notion that humility is putting ourselves down—being small. Jesus Christ is the perfection of all good traits and he never put himself down. Instead He proclaimed, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). What this teaches us is that an essential ingredient in humility is honesty.

One of my favorite definitions of humility is “Power under control.” What that means to me is that we acknowledge the power we have but we don’t misuse or abuse that power. If we have the power to play beautiful music we acknowledge that gift and use it whenever appropriate to bless the lives of others and to make ourselves happy, but we never flaunt it or put others down because they can’t make the same music we can make. Especially we don’t go around saying we don’t make beautiful music just because we think that is being humble.

If we are going to become heavenly beings, we need to recognize the powers that are ours and use them, share them, and thank God for them, but never diminish or deny them.