Power
Andy Stanley has 2 great messages on his website www.northpoint.org on the topic of power. The first is dated 3/18 and is called "Intoxicating". I recommend you listen to them or watch them streaming on his site.

Power is bestowed on all of us. The setup for this sermon is the exchange between Christ and Pilate. Pilate is saying to Jesus "They want me to kill you and I have the power to do so". Jesus says to him, "The only reason you have power is that I gave it to you."

All power is given and we all possess some of it in some way. Be it power simply over our kids, "Go get the garbarge cans", the little league team we coach, our spouse, the department we are in charge of, the church we serve as Pastor or the company we serve as CEO. We all have some form of power and we will all lose this power at some point. It is given and it is temporary. If you sell your business and pocket millions - you have power but since no one has figured out how to take the money with them, the money is temporary. When we shift our focus to protecting and leveraging our power for more power, the trouble starts. We have all been victims of the abuse of power - we've all seen how others misuse it.

I had a boss one time that was bestowed a ton of power at a very early age. It was clearly (in hindsight) given to him too early and too much was given to him. He abused the power. He hoarded it. He never wanted others to grow and prosper less their star rise and he lose some of his power. He worked hard to position himself so it would be obvious that he was the best choice for the next promotion and he postured so those in competition with him were painted in a way that took them out of the running. It worked. He got the #2 job and was in line for #1. But it was how he possessed the power that ultimately led to his rapidly losing all the power he had. He alienated those under him and when push came to shove, he had no foundation of support.

The way to have power as a legacy is to give it away - to not care who gets the credit. The servant can never be greater than the master. If the master gives it away, he will leave a legacy that lasts long after he is gone. This is the "servant leader" model but I now understand it better than I ever have once I grasped what Andy was saying about power. I think of this in terms of this boss. What if he had adopted the power give away model? What if set out to make all of us that work for him the best we could possibly be? What if his job had been to train and equip one or more of us to wind up taking his job? How loyal would we have been to him? We would have walked through plate glass for him and ultimately, he would have possessed even more power (but, since his heart would have been different, he wouldn't have cared).

Power is given to each of it and it will be taken away. We have it for a short time. The call is what will we do with it. Will we use it to empower and bless others not caring if we ever get credit? Or will we clutch it, protect it, leverage it, manipulate it so that we can gain even more power? Give it away. It will come back to us ten-fold.

Soar!