Touchy Topic: Power Lust
A month ago, I published a blog post describing both the natural world and miracles as being magical, splendorous evidences of power emanating from a good source—from God Himself. This week, our touchy topic will cover the common and understandable power lust we humans are incredibly susceptible to indulging.
Human beings strive for control. We long to possess mastery over our circumstances, our relationships, even our own emotions. We employ many means to grasp personal power—manipulation, coercion, influence, money, prestige, and yes—sometimes witchcraft. Does that feel like a tremendous leap, logically?
Think a bit more about why a person might seek the occult. Why would someone be interested in higher knowledge, cosmic connection, the ability to unlock the “divinity” within? For the same reasons you make choices—a search for a greater purpose in life, a desire to be needed by someone, a desire to infuse personal trauma with meaning, a desire to regain control over life after terrible experiences make them feel powerless.
There’s a whole slew of rabbit trails we could meander along regarding magic and magic-users in Scripture. The main takeaway should always be—there’s a distinct line drawn between God’s power and the power of other beings such as demons, Satan, magicians, possessed people, and everyone else. The story of Simon the magician, found in Acts 8, is a humorous story about the clash of supernatural realities within the lived experiences of a single human being.
Simon’s story seems a little fantastical if you read it in the context of the first century church. I think it’d be fun to retell it in a modern setting. But read the original yourself and ask—was Simon a Christian, and if so, what motivations were going through his mind?
Once Upon A Small Town Magician
So, there’s this real estate agent named David Sims. He’s a really great guy—a family guy—and he’s got a knack for sales. You sit down and talk with David and before you know it, he’s pulled up exactly the house you’re looking for, it’s in your price range, the school district’s amazing… sooner than you might expect, you’re moving in.
You tell all your friends— “Closed in 10 days, in this housing market…? The guy’s a miracle worker!”
Your friends all buy houses. Soon, David’s face is on half the billboards you drive past along the highway. He’s throwing dinner parties, funding charities, attending galas. In your small town, he’s a household name. Every one of his clients feels like he knows them personally. This small-town guy has become one of the GREATS. He’ll probably be President some day!
One morning, you’re sitting in church. Someone new walks through the doors and you can’t believe your eyes. THE David Sims is at your church! He’s studious. He leans forward as the preacher gives a sermon. Weeping during the altar call, David Sims walks forward. Soon, his conversion is the talk of the town. Even the naysayers who want it all to just be a publicity stunt stop complaining when David volunteers with the homeless ministry.
You show up Saturdays for the soup kitchen too, and what you observe there is nothing short of astounding. David follows the Pastor around like a toddler asking too-blunt questions.
“Why didn’t you pray for that guy to receive Jesus?"
“Hey! That fellow has a cross tattoo’d on his arm. Maybe he wants to pray the sinner’s prayer!”
“Pastor, why don’t you just stand up on that chair and give an altar call? Come on! I know you’ve got the right words. It worked on me! Do it again!”
Finally, your pastor takes David aside. You overhear their conversation.
“David, these men aren’t showing up for a sermon. They just want some hot food. Sometimes, the loving thing to do is to connect with people where they’re at, and show them Christ’s love tangibly, not preach at them. Why’re you so interested in my preaching, anyway? Didn’t you volunteer to help out in the kitchen?”
“Oh no, Preach! I just wanted to see you lead some of these fellows to Christ, so I can figure out how to do it. I’m gonna convert the whole city! I can see it now—Talk To David Sims To Find Your Earthly Heaven and Your Heavenly Home!”
David laughs, clapping the Pastor on the arm. The Preacher is about to answer, but one of the homeless men charges forward, having overheard David’s pronouncement. He doesn’t look too happy.
“I don’t come here for no sermons! I hear one more word about Jesus out o’ you two and I won’t be comin’ back!”
When he stomps out, David looks glum. “Why was he taking issue? Everybody likes my help. Ever since I started coming to church, I’ve been feeling confused about my calling in life. I’m a great salesman. I enjoy making people happy. Jesus is the best happiness there is, preach, so why can’t my calling be telling people about Him?”
“God isn’t a business, David. You can’t make people happy with a formula. That’s not how it works. If you really want to make people happy, examine your motives. Think seriously about whether you’re doing this for others, or for yourself. Watch out for pride.”
Does David sound like someone you know? In Acts, it’s likely that Simon’s conversion was genuine. He really gave up his magic and all his personal greatness. But perhaps the lure of power lust remained. He might’ve wanted the power to impart the Holy Spirit out of a desire to do good. No matter his motives, he received a rebuke. If he was truly allying Himself with God, he would need to leave behind the ways of Satan. In God’s kingdom, those who wield power do so under God’s direction—they have no agency of their own (Moses provides a LOT of examples of this).
In my previous post, I said magic in literature should make a statement, not seek merely to entertain. More broadly, I believe every positive emotional experience is designed to make us feel our souls. Sometimes watching a sunset becomes an out-of-body experience; you feel yourself growing larger than you thought possible. Your emotions take you outside of yourself; you’re overwhelmed. This is evidence that we are made for greater things, for a broader existence than the one our flesh binds us to in this life. This is real magic. This is what a cheap imitation like witchcraft wants to be capable of, but falls short of achieving—humanity and divinity uniting.
Magic in literature should give us that feeling. It should remind us that there’s so much more in store for us, but our current frame is achingly limited so that the fuller reality feels like fantasy. It’s the sense C.S. Lewis wrote about and I’ll leave you with his words—
“In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness… it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.
Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter…. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.
Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth. …
Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache (The Weight of Glory).”
