Power by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jan 11, 1906

Power

By L. A. S.

L. A. S.

WHAT is power? In a physical sense, we are accustomed to associate it with strength of body. But muscle is not power. A person may easily deceive himself by fancying that because he has strong muscles, he has a large supply of power in his body, that this supply of power must continue so long as his muscles hold out, and that he can continue in violation of the laws of nature until warned by waning muscular power that his vitality is on the decline. We may make a serious mistake when we try to measure our stock of health by the amount of our physical strength.

The muscles depend upon the nerves. Let the nerves cease to act, and the muscles are at once completely powerless. A muscle has no power at all in itself. It is merely the means through which power is manifested. Nor has a nerve any strength. It is a mere line of tissue running from one part of the body to another. Yet along that line power travels to the muscle, and without the connecting nerves the muscle would be as powerless as a lump of clay. A person, taking account of his state of health, needs to consider the amount of nerve force he has on hand. The supply may be running dangerously low before he becomes aware of the fact. There may be a disturbance somewhere which will suddenly interfere with the nerve supply to certain muscles or organs, and cause sudden and very serious loss of power. Disease may make its way very insidiously to some part of the nerve citadel, and while the individual is boasting of his health and strength and ability to disregard without injury the rules of healthful living which have been deduced by physiologists, cut the all-important lines of nerve communication, and stretch him suddenly upon a bed of sickness. Like Belshazzar, he may suffer the loss of his kingdom, physically, in a single night. It is never safe to disregard established laws of health.

The nerves communicate power to the muscles, but they, like the muscles, have no power in themselves. They can not cause muscular action without an impulse from the brain. The blow delivered by the arm starts with an impulse originating in the will power of the brain. Without that impulse, neither nerves nor muscles would act at all, and no blow would be struck. Does power, then, originate in the brain?

The Scripture declares that power belonged unto God (Ps. 62:11), and “there is no power but of God.” Rom. 13:1. The muscles, the nerves, the brain, do not originate power; no intelligible theory of such an origin of physical force can be devised. Power comes as a loan to us from the Creator. The human organism is provided with the means whereby this power may be exercised in divers ways, for the welfare of the individual. We are responsible to the Creator for our use or abuse of this power. We are responsible to him for the preservation of the physical agencies by which our powers of body or of mind are exercised. We are not at liberty to disregard the laws of health. “The laws of nature are the laws of God.”