Authority

Instead of going to the office today, I decided to stay home. Since it was one of those rare days when I didn’t have any meetings or any errands to run, I thought I’d just stay in my PJs and write. As I was taking my children to school, I noticed it was really nice outside. When I checked the weather forecast, it was predicting rain mid-morning and the temperature was expected to be ten to twenty degrees colder over the remainder of the ten-day forecast. So, I knew today was going to be the best day for me to cut my grass one last time this season.

As soon as I got back home, I pulled out my lawn equipment so I could go ahead and get started. Just as I was about to crank things up, it started to drizzle. What? No way! I started praying, “Lord, please hold off the rain until after I’m done cutting the grass.” It seemed like the more I prayed, the more it went from a few scattered drops to a continuous fine mist. That’s when it hit me. I was asking God to do something He has given me the authority to do. And that’s when I, like Elijah, declared “There will be no rain until I’m done cutting my grass.” And you want to know what happened next? It stopped. The rain stopped. 

I went ahead and started cutting my grass. When I was on the last section of my yard, I started feeling another raindrop here and there. Realizing that I also needed to edge the perimeter, blow the residual clippings, and pull weeds in the flowerbed, I modified my declaration and said, “There will be no rain until I’m done with all my yard work.” And once again, the rain stopped and I continued working. 

Cleaning up my flowerbed was the last thing I needed to do. As I was picking up a pile of grass from around the border, I saw something long and white in my hand so I dropped it to see what it was. As I was raking through the pile with my hand, out popped a snake! The long white something I had seen in my hand was the underbelly of the snake! My first thought was to go to the garage and grab my hoe (after I took a picture of course). But the Holy Spirit quickly reminded me, “You have access to more power than that!” (See my blog post entitled, Show Me the Power for more on this topic.) So after I snapped a quick pic, I grabbed my power edger instead. I cranked that baby up and let’s just say the snake got in the way as I was edging my flowerbed. 

It was almost as if God wanted to reiterate to me this whole concept of authority. We not only have the ability to speak with authority but we also have the power to walk in authority. When we truly get a revelation of this, it makes 2 Timothy 1:7 so much easier to understand. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” 

Now, walking in authority does not give you permission to be ignorant. You still have to use wisdom. Even though I had total victory over demolishing the serpent in front of me, it did not mean I should have gone back to dig around to see if he had any other relatives that I missed. I simply went back and finished pulling the weeds from my flowerbed and spread out some weed preventer. And would you like to guess what happened next? Yep… It started raining! So I wiped down my mower for the season, put all my equipment away, headed inside, and went on about my day.

Walking in authority should be just a part of who we are and not something out of the norm. We shouldn’t be surprised when the rain stops at our command or when we defeat an enemy without batting an eyelash. We are children of The Most High God. And if our Daddy can operate in authority and power, then so can we!

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