The Load-Shedding of the Soul
Scripture: "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men." - Philippians 2:5-7
I was sitting in the perfect storm of a Pretoria traffic jam, the sun hammering on my bonnet. On my radio, the SABC newsreader listed the evening's load-shedding schedule—Stage 4. In my spirit, I felt the warning siren of a different kind of power failure. My phone buzzed—a friend, another casualty in the relentless war of modern South African life, was despairing. "The lights are out, the economy is down, the hope is gone. I’m running on empty, bra."
Running on empty. The phrase stuck with me, a perfect diagnosis for a national malaise. We are a nation obsessed with power—the literal, electrical kind, and the metaphorical kind of status, control, and self-sufficiency. We grasp for it, we hoard it, we rage when it’s taken. And in this desperate grasping, we experience a perpetual load-shedding of the soul, a spiritual blackout where anxiety, fear, and despair flood the void.
But what if our entire understanding of power is backwards? What if the path to true, unshakeable power is not through grasping, but through a holy release?
The Kenosis Paradox: The Power in the Pouring Out
Let us define our terms clearly. Theologians have a word for this holy release: Kenosis. It comes from the Greek in Philippians 2:7, meaning Christ "emptied himself." Now, let’s not be heretical. This does not mean He ceased to be God. That would be like the sun ceasing to be the sun. No, it means He willingly, gloriously, set aside the independent use of His divine prerogatives. The Omnipotent One entered the world in the vulnerability of a baby. The King of Kings took the towel and basin of a slave.
This is the cosmic contradiction that confounds every human system of power. The world says, "Claw your way up." Jesus demonstrates, "Humble yourself down." The world says, "Assert your rights." Jesus models, "Lay down your life."
Let me frame this as a logical syllogism, a weapon to dismantle the enemy’s lies:
· Major Premise: True, eternal power is defined by the nature of God.
· Minor Premise: God, in Christ, demonstrated His ultimate power through voluntary, loving self-sacrifice and service (Kenosis).
· Conclusion: Therefore, the way to access true, eternal power is not through self-assertion, but through Christ-like self-sacrifice and service.
A common objection arises: "But Harold, this sounds like weakness! In a dog-eat-dog world, this is a recipe for being devoured." However, this fails because it mistakes the method for the outcome. Was Jesus weak on the cross? That "weakness" was dismantling the very foundations of sin and death! His surrender was a strategic conquest. When you surrender your "right" to retaliate, you disarm your enemy of his greatest weapon—bitterness. When you pour out your resources for another, you activate heaven’s economy of multiplication. This is not passive weakness; it is active, faith-filled warfare.
From Soshanguve to Sandton: The Practical Power of Pouring
Picture a world where we applied this Kenosaic principle. Imagine the Soshanguve grandmother who, despite her own poverty, consistently has a pot of food for the neighbourhood children. She is not powerful by Sandton's standards, yet she radiates a resilient, generative joy that no market crash can erase. She has tapped into the source.
I see it in my own Akasia neighbourhood. A young man, frustrated by the lack of opportunity, could easily be consumed by the toxic trinity of tribalism, materialism, and cynicism. Instead, he started a community garden, teaching other unemployed youths to grow their own food. He emptied his time, his energy, his limited knowledge. And in that emptying, he was filled with a purpose no one can load-shed. He became a local source of light, not just a consumer complaining about the darkness.
This is the ultimate apologetic. In a nation fractured by corruption and self-interest, a community of people who practice the paradoxical power of Kenosis is undeniable evidence. It is reasonable, because it produces tangible good. It is spiritually potent, because it channels the very life of Christ. It is culturally revolutionary, because it offers a better way than the vicious cycles of greed and grievance.
The Call: Be a Sub-Station of Grace
So, as you sit in your darkened home tonight, frustrated by the literal power failure, ask the Holy Spirit to audit the condition of your soul. Where are you grasping for control, for recognition, for a worldly version of power that inevitably fails? Where is your internal stage of load-shedding?
The call of Christ is to flip the main switch of your soul from "Self" to "Servant." To stop trying to be your own eskom and to plug into the Divine Grid, whose power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). Your act of Kenosis—forgiving that colleague, serving your difficult family, giving sacrificially to a worthy cause—is not a loss. It is a direct connection to the Dynamo of the Universe.
You are called to be a sub-station of grace in a grid-starved world. Let your life be a place where the lights never go out.
Prayer: Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, I confess my addiction to the wrong kind of power. I have grasped when You called me to give. Forgive me. Tonight, I choose the mind of Christ. I choose the Kenosis. I empty my hands of my own striving so that I may take hold of the true, eternal power found only in sacrificial love. Make me a conduit of Your un-sheddable light, right here in the shadows of Akasia, Pretoria, and beyond. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment