The great and powerful OZ

People and power don't always go well together. Power is one of those tough topics that we dodge in the kingdom of God. Yet is is so relevant. Everything boils down to it. Ultimately a surrender to Jesus is about laying down our power - the power or ability to think we are God of our own little universe.

Sometimes power comes out as a inflated sense of self importance. We think the world really needs us. We call that arrogance. But I find a far more dangerous pattern of power is our codependency. I am not really sure how many people really know just how damaging codependency is, let alone what it is. So let me explain.

Codependency is also a pattern of relating to the world with an inflated sense of self importance, but it is indirect. It is when we think we have to hold the world together because no one else will. It is when another person's job becomes ours to do. It is when another person's well being is in our hands. It looks like genuine caring, but it isn't. There is an old joke about the codependent who's car stalls on the railroad tracks as a train is coming, and someone else's life passes before their eyes.

Lets imagine that an able bodied, normally gifted person continues to not find a job. So the codependent helps them out, giving them money for food or some clothes or a ride. That would be called 'caring for someone,' until the point where our actions keep that other person from taking care of themselves. Sometimes that other person doesn't really have to get a job because we are meeting all their needs, doing for them what they can do for themselves. It makes us feel good that we can help, and it makes us mighty powerful, but it enables that other person to remain helpless - they don't have to find a job because we keep taking care of them. They don't have to save money because we keep giving it to them. They have the luxury to be irresponsible because we are working over time to be responsible for them. That isn't the love of Christ; that is codependence.

Exerting our power would mean to force them to have to reap what they sow. A general tell tale sign of codependency is when we give to point where the relationship with that other person is frustrating us - we are working harder at them getting somewhere than they are.

There is an interesting scene in the movie 'The Wizard of Oz'. The lion, tinman, scarecrow and Dorothy go before the great and all powerful Oz because they want him to do something for them. He tells them to go face their deepest fear - the wicked witch of the west. Ultimately at the end of the story he shows them that they had the power to get where they wanted all along. Although he takes a circuitous route in getting there, he finally draws the good out of them that had been there all the time - they just didn't see it. That is the work of Christ - not doing for others what they can and could do for themselves, but believing in and drawing out the good that God put in them when He created them. It is reminding them that they really are powerful - over their struggles or addictions or discouragements.

So go be the Wizard of Oz to some folks today.