Strength

Every generation has a view on what is “strong”.  I can remember growing up at the tail end of what I now call the atom bomb era.  I missed most of the preparations for what might have happened in a disaster, yet I can still recall the black and white instructions instructional movies when I was just beginning school.  We believed.  It was accepted fact that the bomb was the most powerful “thing” the world would ever know.  Nothing would ever measure up or so we thought at the time.
 
Decades later the atom bomb is still big yet I know of things that are “bigger”.  Bombs are now measured in multiples of the original atom bomb.  Power plant explosions have exposed the danger lurking within even the “good stuff”.  Lives and communities bear the scars which will last for generations.  Even with these examples, I suspect we have born witness to something even more powerful – ideas.
 
When I read of times past I find two different forces driving change.  “Here you've reduced the city to rubble, the strong city to a pile of stones.  The enemy Big City is a non-city, never to be a city again.  Superpowers will see it and honor you, brutal oppressors bow in worshipful reverence.”  (Isaiah 25.2, 3)  It isn’t just power that causes change, it is something more.
 
With time I find I am no longer able to do all the things of my youth.  My agility isn’t what it used to be.  My responses are slower.  My absolute power is less.  Yet I can still compete for one simple reason – ideas. 
 
Mahatma Ghandi tapped into the most powerful force – truth.  This force is not based on brute force, just ideas.  This power isn’t just physical; it comes from within and without.  The impact isn’t forced, it is accepted and promoted.  Truth lived changes everything.
 
In the struggle to live it is natural to reach for brute force.  You and I have access to truth filled “ideas”.  Today we have the option of being stronger than anything we encounter.