Recently my family took a trip to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Both my wife and I have passports, so with them and all five kids’ birth certificates, we traveled to our closest “foreign” country. Our entire family enjoys the trip to the mighty falls and many of these excursions are very sporadic since it’s only a few hours away.
We stayed on the 26th floor and could look down and see both the Canadian and American Falls. Even from this height, you could hear the power of the falls. An astounding 600,000 gallons of water falls 167 feet to the rocks below each SECOND.
When walking around down by the falls you see people from countless walks of life and ethnicities. A variety of languages are spoken by the travelers, and yet when someone needs a group picture taken the language barrier is broken because we all want a picture with the power of the falls behind us.
Each of the people at the falls has a different life story and a variety of scars. I’m sure cultural elements that would be hard for me to comprehend are a part of many of their lives. All those people, all those lives, all those scars.
When I was looking down at the falls from the hotel I couldn’t escape the thought of the power of the falls. Seeing people the size of ants walking around below I couldn’t help but think about how we can label ourselves as powerful or powerless.
Not a single person who was viewing the power of the falls could do one thing to stop it. The power of 2,400 tons/second of water could never be stopped by anyone there. That power is just too great to counter.
I think that sometimes we can see what others can do that we can’t and feel powerless. Just as I am powerless compared to Niagara Falls, if we compare ourselves to others to find our worth, we can often feel powerless. I believe that we can find true power in ourselves when we aren’t looking at ourselves as the source of that power. There’s a sentence in the Bible that I just love. It says in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
So, if I can do all things, that must mean that I can stop the strength and power of Niagara Falls? No, it’s not talking about that strength, it’s dealing with the fact that God wants to be the one who provides the hope and strength in our weaknesses.
I can’t do a lot of things physically that I would really like to, but that doesn’t make me weaker as a person. My worth isn’t found on the outside things that I can do or not do, but on the strength of the person that I am on the inside.
We stayed on the 26th floor and could look down and see both the Canadian and American Falls. Even from this height, you could hear the power of the falls. An astounding 600,000 gallons of water falls 167 feet to the rocks below each SECOND.
When walking around down by the falls you see people from countless walks of life and ethnicities. A variety of languages are spoken by the travelers, and yet when someone needs a group picture taken the language barrier is broken because we all want a picture with the power of the falls behind us.
Each of the people at the falls has a different life story and a variety of scars. I’m sure cultural elements that would be hard for me to comprehend are a part of many of their lives. All those people, all those lives, all those scars.
When I was looking down at the falls from the hotel I couldn’t escape the thought of the power of the falls. Seeing people the size of ants walking around below I couldn’t help but think about how we can label ourselves as powerful or powerless.
Not a single person who was viewing the power of the falls could do one thing to stop it. The power of 2,400 tons/second of water could never be stopped by anyone there. That power is just too great to counter.
I think that sometimes we can see what others can do that we can’t and feel powerless. Just as I am powerless compared to Niagara Falls, if we compare ourselves to others to find our worth, we can often feel powerless. I believe that we can find true power in ourselves when we aren’t looking at ourselves as the source of that power. There’s a sentence in the Bible that I just love. It says in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
So, if I can do all things, that must mean that I can stop the strength and power of Niagara Falls? No, it’s not talking about that strength, it’s dealing with the fact that God wants to be the one who provides the hope and strength in our weaknesses.
I can’t do a lot of things physically that I would really like to, but that doesn’t make me weaker as a person. My worth isn’t found on the outside things that I can do or not do, but on the strength of the person that I am on the inside.
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