{"id":5567,"date":"2026-07-09T08:59:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5567"},"modified":"2026-07-09T08:59:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:59:02","slug":"amazing-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/09\/amazing-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazing Power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>

Imagine that every time you drive your car a quarter of a mile you have to rebuild its engine.

That’s the challenge of managing a Top Fuel dragster, those needle-nosed top-of-the-line acceleration machines.\u00a0\u00a0

Top Fuel dragsters aren’t built in dusty garages by tinkerers.\u00a0

They are birthed by engineers and skilled technicians in immaculate assembly areas.

What impresses outsiders is not just the noise, the speed, and the inherent danger. It’s the numbers.\u00a0Math is probably the only language capable of describing the sheer power of these fire-breathing monsters.\u00a0

A Top Fuel dragster weighs 2,000 pounds.\u00a0It generates 8,000 horsepower.\u00a0It accelerates faster than any vehicle on Earth, generating 5 G’s and reaching 300 mph in about the same time your Chevy goes from zero to 30 mph.\u00a0

A mere half-second after the lights on the “Christmas tree” turn green and the driver opens the throttle, the dragster has already traveled 21 feet and is going 74 mph.\u00a0At the one-second mark, the speed has reached 113 mph.\u00a0

At two seconds, the dragster (which is burning fuel at the rate of 95 gallons per minute) has traveled 250 feet and is going 213 mph.\u00a0

In just less than four seconds, driver and car have gone 1000 feet and are traveling about 315 mph.\u00a0That’s when the fuel is gone, parachutes are deployed, and the dragster slows to a stop.\u00a0The mechanical stress during those four seconds is so extreme that most of the sparkplugs will have burned away. \u00a0

During a typical weekend competition, a dragster will make up to eight runs, including qualifying and one-on-one races.\u00a0Each run essentially destroys the engine and burns through $5,000 of fuel and parts.\u00a0The crew, working hard, can rebuild the engine in about 40 minutes.\u00a0\u00a0

Those engines, at full throttle, are insanely loud \u2013 enough to inflict physical pain or even lifetime hearing impairment. Track announcers at Top Fuel events typically warn spectators to protect their ears, and a number of tracks even hand out ear plugs as a courtesy.

For sheer power, acceleration, and sonic impact, nothing holds a candle to a Top Fuel dragster.\u00a0

But that’s nothing compared to the amazing power that you have right now.\u00a0\u00a0

You have the power to do something almost unimaginable: You can push God away.\u00a0You can tell the Creator of the cosmos to bug off and stay out of your life.

Incredibly, he will comply.

We see this when Jesus journeys with his disciples to the Gentile side of the Sea of Galilee, to a place the Gospels identify as either the region of the Gerasenes or Gadarenes. There he is confronted by a man whose life is being systematically destroyed by indwelling demonic spirits.

If Hollywood screenwriters were inventing this story, Jesus and the demons would have a knockdown-dragout fight. Good would prevail over evil only after a monumental struggle.

But there is no fight. Jesus is the unchallenged master of both the seen and unseen worlds. The demons, from minute one, are powerless in his presence.

But perhaps they can land a telling blow. Maybe they can disrupt Jesus\u2019 ministry. They ask permission to be sent into a herd of pigs feeding on a nearby hillside.\u00a0The gospel of Mark tells us there are 2,000 swine.\u00a0The demonized pigs promptly rush down the hillside and into the lake.\u00a0

The shocking thing is that they all drown.\u00a0Pigs are excellent swimmers.\u00a0They are the Michael Phelps of barnyard animals.\u00a0

By drowning the pigs, the demons have generated some serious havoc \u2013 an economic disaster for the people in this region.\u00a0

These pigs represented the 401(k) of multiple herders.\u00a0They were the \u201cpiggy bank\u201d of a lot of people who didn\u2019t yet know God.\u00a0The upshot is that these people now associate Jesus not with good news but with a commodity collapse. \u00a0

It\u2019s just possible that the saddest verse in the Bible is Luke 8:37: \u201cThen all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear.\u00a0So he got into the boat and left.\u201d\u00a0

Notice that Jesus doesn\u2019t stick around and say, \u201cWait, I\u2019m sure we can work something out.\u201d

Nor does he try, at least in this story, to explain what\u2019s at stake. He might have asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s it worth to you to have a relationship with someone who can cleanse a demonized man? Do you care more about your checkbooks than somebody having a shot at a new life?

\u201cAre you willing to surrender the habits that are crippling your peace of mind? To stop pursuing the prestige you think will give your life meaning? To abandon your need to be in absolute control of the next 24 hours? To release the dreams you have for your children, the ones you\u2019re hoping will validate your identity as good parents?\u201d

Those questions ought to take our breath away.

But the people who have just had a first-person encounter with divine power are scared to death by what might happen next. They beg Jesus to leave.

Do you realize how much power you have?\u00a0You have the power to make the Son of God go away.\u00a0

All you have to do is ask.\u00a0

Or you can do just the opposite.\u00a0Like the demon-haunted man in this story, you have the power to respond to Jesus\u2019 transforming touch by choosing to embrace a whole new way of life.\u00a0

And that\u2019s the kind of power that changes everything.<\/em>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Imagine that every time you drive your car a quarter of a mile you have to rebuild its engine. That’s the challenge of managing a Top Fuel dragster, those needle-nosed top-of-the-line acceleration machines.\u00a0\u00a0 Top Fuel dragsters aren’t built in dusty garages by tinkerers.\u00a0 They are birthed by engineers and skilled technicians… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[697,307,824],"class_list":["post-5567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-demons","tag-free-will","tag-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5569,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5567\/revisions\/5569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}