Recently I finished the book, Power and Love, by Adam Kahane, which got me thinking again about "strength and kindness." He says in the introduction:
“Power and love stand at right angles and delineate the space of social change. If we want to get unstuck and to move around this space – if we want to address our toughest challenges – we must understand and work with both of these drives.”He discusses the two sides of power: generative (power-to) and degenerative (power-over). He also writes about the two sides of love: generative (when love is empowering) and degenerative (when love suffocates power). It's a good read if you like reading about how to facilitate social change. What it caused me to think most about, however, was the "strength and kindness" motto I embraced years ago.
So the principle of strength and kindness (similar to power and love), is that strength alone results in bully-type behavior and kindness alone results in sappy, ineffective behavior. The two must work together. Jesus was both, of course. He stood up to the religious leaders of the times with incredible pluck, and He was incredibly kind to the weak, the broken-hearted, and many people that the religious regularly judged.
Jesus illustrated that love is strong, which sometimes means being obstinate in standing up for the unpopular belief or person, and that love is also kind, which can mean withholding judgment, offering respect, and extending mercy. And who can deny the strength and kindness He displayed as he walked to the cross for me, when He could have used His power to call it all off?
When do we stand up for our rights with people…with organizations? And when do we thoughtfully remain silent? When do we tow a tough line upholding our religious beliefs (ever? depends on one's definition of religious, I guess...), and when do we sync our beliefs with the life and teachings of Jesus? I find that the day to day scenarios that raise these questions don’t often have obvious, easy answers, yet it’s in the wrestling with these situations that God’s Spirit…God’s Word speaks words of wisdom, words of comfort and words of action, or inaction.
I’ve cried out to Him several times recently when I didn’t know whether to wield some strength through countering argument, or whether to be strongly silent. Both of these particular times He led me to silence. And should anyone think silence is weakness, try being silent when your natural self wants to argue! Those are times I’m very aware of my need for God’s strength.
And it doesn’t end there. For just as soon as I temporarily master silence, He typically leads me to speak up about something, and I find myself once again in need of His strength - this time to act in His power. And on and on it goes...
So following Christ isn’t easy. And yet it is. It isn’t, because it requires continuous seeking and wrestling with conventional wisdom in order to discern and follow truth. It is, because truth is found through the power of the Holy Spirit, and in the power of Jesus - The Word. It involves a lot of calling out to God for wisdom and help, but with sure results: He always answers. This makes following Jesus easy, and enables us to be both strong and kind.
