Will, Power, and Work: How Jesus Frees Us to Rest

The relationship between rest, work, and power is… well, it is tricky, isn’t it? In one sense, we work and exert power to get things done because all work requires some power. Is resting, then, simply a temporary, albeit unfortunately necessary, pause in power?

You can quickly see how finding more power can have an alluring, even tempting, quality. But what do I mean by power? For this article, let me define power as the ability to get things done.

It is good when we choose to get things done, when the will-directed achievement of a to-do list takes place in our lives. More power would mean more things get done, and our will is done on earth as it is in our hearts. Now, what’s the harm in that? It turns out there can be quite a bit of harm in it, and this is why the relationship is tricky. A perennial potential harm is, willfully or not, neglecting the rest we often need.

My argument in this article is simple. What often leads us away from rest is when the human will no longer guides the power, but the power (the ability to get things done) instead directs and controls the will. My proposed solution is to hand over both the will and the power to someone who perfectly holds the balance.

When Power Takes the Driver’s Seat

J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) contains one of the best examples of a character who changes as power slowly gains control over the will. On this exact date, eighty-nine years ago, Tolkien published The Hobbit, introducing the world to Bilbo Baggins, the unobtrusive, mostly honest hobbit. (Happy Hobbit Day to all who will celebrate tomorrow!)

In The Hobbit, Bilbo finds the One Ring, the Ring of Power. He uses it at various points in the story, and by the time we meet him at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, he has had it for decades. What effect has this prolonged exposure to power had on him? Bilbo tells us.

He states, “‘I am old, Gandalf. I don’t look it, but I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts. Well-preserved indeed!’ he snorted. ‘Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right. I need a change, or something.’” Bilbo feels he needs “a very long holiday,” wanting to see the mountains again and find somewhere to rest in peace and quiet.

There is no question that Bilbo’s long possession of the Ring is largely responsible for what he is feeling. In fact, Bilbo eventually states that he tried locking up the Ring, “but I found I couldn’t rest without it in my pocket.”

Having unparalleled power in your pocket leaves you unable to rest, with or without it. Sound familiar?

In The Hobbit, Bilbo mostly uses the Ring as a will-directed power. But he struggles to let it go in the opening pages of LOTR. It is also throughout LOTR that we see Frodo make the progression from the will-directed use of power to the power-directed override of the will. This progression also helps explain why the Ring was seen as a temptation and peril.

Frodo is tempted to put it on at times, but he “resists the temptation.” When Frodo offers him the Ring, Gandalf responds, “Do not tempt me!” When the Ring is far from Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Gandalf, Gandalf is relieved and states, “We can no longer be tempted to use the Ring.” The temptation is to use the Ring of Power, as the bearers would initially direct it. The Ring, however, eventually begins to direct the will.

When power takes the driver’s seat, that is when we find ourselves being spread too thin, worn out, and desperately in need of rest. When this happens, what can we do to find rest? To whom can we turn when the balancing act itself has worn us out? There is a prayer that frees, and it is to that prayer that we turn.

The Prayer that Frees Us

The prayer I am thinking of is the one Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane: “Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matt 26:39). Now, I am not saying that Jesus had reached the point where power controlled him over and against his will. What I am saying, however, is that this prayer can help us if we pray it. It helps us by freeing us to rest truly.

This prayer takes the delicate art of balancing the relationship completely out of our hands and places it in God’s hands. As much as we might stress about the relationship surveyed above, the answer is not to try harder to maintain the order, but rather to place the balancing of will and power in the hands of the one who holds all things in perfect balance. In doing so, we can let go and cease striving to keep will-directed power in the driver’s seat. Praying this prayer puts both will and power in God’s hands.

God will accomplish his sovereign will, and his purposes will not be thwarted. He will execute his righteous judgments with pinpoint precision when it comes to power. Both his will and the power used are perfect. He will never overexert himself. He will never overreact. He also never wills or commits evil. He is good, and he does what is good” (Ps 119:68).

If you are struggling to rest because power—“getting things done”—has been directing the will instead of the will directing the power, then hand both over to your good God and let him balance will and power… and then maybe go take a nap for the glory of God.