The power of our voice

The Power of our Voice This is quite a timely topic for me as it is something I have thought about on every car journey I have been on recently as I blast out this song on repeat: “You've got the words to change a nation But you're biting your tongue You've spent a life time stuck in silence Afraid you'll say something wrong If no one ever hears it how we gonna learn your song?�

Read All About It, Pt. III, Emeli Sande These lyrics really resonate with me, and I am sure with many others.

I have spent too much time afraid to have a voice due to a fear of being wrong or someone disagreeing with me and/or rejecting me. I think this is one of the reasons I find writing so cathartic - through it I have found an outlet for my voice and it is becoming a little less scary each time.

Something Duncan said on Sunday really struck me. He said, you are a powerful person carrying a powerful message with a powerful voice. And what is comforting to know is that the power does not come from within myself, but rather from the powerful God that lives within me.

Power is not something I often associate with myself. I naturally lean more towards feeling quite timid. I think I have a picture in my head of either a great physical presence or a well-known and influential figure as being powerful. Not me.

But if we have made a decision to live for Jesus then we have what many world and industry leaders do not have, His Spirit dwelling in us, and that makes us even more powerful than they for this power is supernatural.

I don’t think we always realise the affect we can have now that God is having His way through us. Each of us have been given our own characters and giftings and God is weaving our individual stories so that we are shining lights in a dark world.

As Malala Yousafzai said: “When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”

Your voice, your God-given voice.

We can be quick to disqualify ourselves but I remember Emma Watson saying within her speech at the UN back in 2014: “In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt I’ve told myself firmly—if not me, who, if not now, when. If you have similar doubts when opportunities are presented to you I hope those words might be helpful.”

These are indeed helpful words.

In those 3 -second moments maybe you can ask yourself, ‘if not me, who, if not now, when?’ all the while reminding yourself that your power comes from the God of the universe, not from a 5-step guide on how to influence people.

Written by Lucy Maddox