For several Sundays I’d sat in the back row of the charismatic church observing the flag-waving and shofar blowing and altar calls for healing prayer. I was doing my level best to be openhearted, but mostly I judged people.

One Sunday during a service my thoughts were particularly oppressive. My judgment had progressed into disdain, first of others and then of myself. I sang, I prayed, but the heaviness deepened.

The service ended and on my way out I shook hands with the pastor, a joyful man from India best described as a friend of God. A few steps later I stopped in my tracks. Something had shifted. My mental maelstrom had calmed, my heaviness had lifted, I felt peaceful and clear. Without fanfare or even his awareness, the pastor’s Spirit-empowered touch had blown the cobwebs of confusion from my mind. I went away amazed, thanking God.

The New Testament speaks often of power.

“You shall receive power,” Jesus said just before lifting off. Last Sunday (or this Sunday for Orthodox Christians), we celebrated the arrival of that power in the Holy Spirit.

The Apostle Paul was blunt: ​“The kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.”

But even with the Scripture’s emphasis on power, many of us are power averse. ​“While I instinctually emphasize the possibility of intimacy and abiding peace with God,” writes Carolyn Arends, ​“I tend to shy away from explorations of the availability of His power.”

Behind some of our hesitation, perhaps, is the idea that walking in the power of God must be dramatic or abrasive. But true power, healthy power, godly power is humble and often comes in an understated package. It can flow through a gentle touch, through the hem of a robe, through a pastor’s handshake.

Power can also flow through the spoken word. Not the empty talk that Paul warned against, but Spirit-empowered words of life.

It’s worth pondering that Jesus never wrote anything down. His words are captured in the Spirit-breathed pages of Scripture, and for that we’re grateful. But I suspect Jesus didn’t take up the pen himself because he knew we’d worship the scrolls; we’d get caught up in the letter rather than the Spirit (we do anyway); we’d forget that our power comes from the living Christ, not from perfectly adhering to marks he made on a page.

(Author, speaker, and hip-hop artist Sho Baraka alluded to this on the podcast this week, talking among other things about the importance of oral traditions.)

So, as we enter this liturgical season called Ordinary Time, may we learn to live each ordinary day in power — the strong and humble power of the Holy Spirit.