All of us have something special within ourselves that impacts others and can alter the atmosphere around us: Everyday superpowers. Not exactly the blockbuster movie variety, but superpowers nonetheless. Attitudes and influence that shape opinion, encourage or inspire, and change the course of someone’s day, even if only our own. This is not nothing. In fact, it’s quite a lot.

The person who can always soothe a crying baby in your church nursery. The friend who has a knack for fixing virtually anything. The stranger who sing-songs across the Kroger parking lot, “I LOVE your dress!” turning your frown upside down, then, “Girl, your SHOES (hand gesturing in a dramatic swirl from your head toward your feet), you got it GOING ON today!” Okay…that was personal. Someone I had never met until last Tuesday, and won’t likely ever see again, had the ability to transform my lousy day into something lovely. If that isn’t power, I don’t know what is.

Everyday superpowers are not something we conjure or force, but they can be cultivated. 

Ephesians 2:10 (NLT) tells us, “… we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” We are created in His image with a planned purpose, and regardless of our age or stage, there are always good things for us to do. 

What you offer matters because no one else has exactly what you have to give. God has fashioned each one of us uniquely in a way to impact the people and circumstances around us, whether in word or deed, in large ways or small. Do you understand what that means? Darling, the world hasn’t been the same since you were born.

Satan knows this, too. I suspect he understands God’s plans for us better than we do. It would explain the discouragement, defeat, and despair that continually creep into our hearts and minds. Satan hates us – he hates God! – and he effectively undermines us (and God) any way he can.  

Usually, I think of our everyday superpowers as an outward influence, but recently I’ve considered what a superpower can mean personally. For most of my life, one of my superpowers has been “irrepressible optimism and a tendency to find good in everything” — textbook Pollyanna. In the absence of light, I’d pinpoint the bright side. When all seemed lost, I could find the thinnest silver lining. But, as the past two years have brought some of the darkest days of my life, there have been moments when I’ve been crushed by the pain of circumstance. I could barely hold it together.

It’s easy to think (tapping into faith), “This is right where God wants you. In your weakness, He is strong,” and while that might be true, I would’ve wanted to smack anyone who said that to me. I was in a pit where bright sides and silver linings couldn’t penetrate the darkness. Any superpower I had, or thought I had, was effectively neutralized. I scoffed at every Christian cliché I heard or ever uttered. I couldn’t reconcile a “good God” with the anguish and heartache our family was facing. I was going through the motions the best I could, but underneath a thin veneer, I was fragile, often on the edge of breaking.

I was sad and angry all the time. Have you ever been in a place like that?

Thankfully, another of my everyday superpowers is the ability to think rationally when my mind and emotions are whack-a-doodle. I understood I needed help, and the solution wasn’t Pollyanna. I reached out to my doctor. I confided in people who loved me and who my rational mind knew I could trust. People with whom I could be honest about the ugliness and unbelief I was feeling. People who would listen and pray, not try to fix me. People who would know the right time to point me to Jesus, not shove Him in my face. People with everyday superpowers I desperately needed.  

And, then there was my sister — who was suffering the most — yet intuitively understood how I felt. “Be positive!” she’d chirp when we’d video chat, making a checkmark in front of her heart with her thumb and index finger while simultaneously clicking her tongue, parroting how her husband uses the same words and gestures to encourage her.  

Initially, I wanted to smack her, too. I’d smile politely, irritated at and disappointed in myself that she was the one with a terminal brain tumor, and I wasn’t rallying her. 

But God was at work. He heard the prayers of those interceding, and the Holy Spirit tended my heart. “Be positive” became a battle cry. This wasn’t my Pollyanna disposition resurfacing. Being positive became a powerful act of resistance against the darkness around and within me. This wasn’t any superpower. This was God’s supernatural power at work. 

“I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,
and he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
and steadied me as I walked along.
He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.“
Psalm 40:1-3 NLT

In my dark pit, I needed the supernatural power of Jesus. He met me there and lifted me out of my despair. And He keeps meeting me through His Word and prayer. Through vulnerability and medical support. Through the everyday superpowers of friends and family. Through those whose faith is strong and those, like my sister, whose body is weak. Superpowers birthed from supernatural power are remarkable. How so?

God’s supernatural power empowers you and me to resist the fiery darts of the enemy. His promises are no trite cliché but our precious lived grace.

Might we dare to ask God to use the everyday superpowers He’s knit into our DNA for someone who’s hurting? We never know whose day, whose life, it could change.

 

Listen to Robin’s devotion below or wherever you stream podcasts.

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