Power Moves: A 7-Day Reading Plan to Rediscover Your Inner StrengthMinta

Day Five: Power Move: Break Out of the Box

Our world is designed to reduce us into particular categories. When people meet you, many of them are trying to determine what type of person you are. Once they’ve identified those assumptions—shy, fashionable, athletic, smart, clumsy, funny, forgetful, moody—they build walls around you and expect you to stay in the category they understand.

One of the greatest gifts I’ve given myself is the freedom to be the complex woman God’s created, the one who is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). I’m funny and serious. I am brave and afraid. I am powerful and insecure. I am who I was, who I am, and who I am becoming. If you’re honest, I think you’ll admit to being complex too.

It is crucial for you to fully comprehend the reality of your inheritance of power through your relationship with Jesus. When you refuse to live within the box that people have relegated you to, you force relationships that are as fluid as the power you flow in. If a person is going to be connected with you, they’re going to have to be able to move and flow as you do. Any relationship that requires you to be stagnant will frustrate you because their connection feels like a restriction at a time when pursuing freedom has become your passion.

Pursuing that passion is not always easy, of course. You have a lot going on, and you’re not always going to get it right. There will be moments when all you can do is pray for the grace to survive the day. In those moments I want to challenge you to get innovative with your prayers.

For example, when you are in the thick of it, take the time to pause and size up your responsibilities, but instead of turning to another person to help you, choose to ask God, with specificity, to send His spirit to remind you who He has created you to be and to guide you in the places you fear depletion. My prayer goes through the roof when my capacity does not measure up to the responsibilities at hand. Those are the moments when I get to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to fill my cup and order my steps. I pray you turn to Him and let Him fill yours as well.

Respond:

Where do societal boxes confine you? How can embracing your complexity create more fluid and empowering relationships?

Prayer:

God, thank you for making me uniquely, fearfully, and wonderfully able to pursue the passions You have planted in me. Amen.