When you feel like "unleashing," just remember that it's better to empower than to overpower (a situation). To overpower -- to run over "enemies," to force through a point of view, to ramrod what we want -- is an urge that frequently comes from the ego. It is pride that often makes us want to bowl folks over. Often, we want to do it for the right reasons. We want to correct through brute strength. But being right is not always "right," when we handle it wrongly. The peace of life comes when we dispense with pride and self-centeredness, which is what ego is, and consider ourselves beneath others and at their service. That doesn't mean cow-towing to what is wrong, nor relinquishing one's rights. It means letting the Holy Spirit infuse a situation and guide what you do or say. Even, your thoughts. Be not "double-minded" -- humble outwardly, prideful within; nice outwardly, nasty inside; spiritual and worldly at the same time. A double-minded man is "unstable in all his ways" (James 1). One mind, one spirit. When the Spirit moves, each word is then immensely effective in Godly fashion with a powerful result born of prayer. The Flame of His love must burn away our falsity. It is the only way to get to our true self. When what we have is taken away many will wonder who they are. It is always taken away, all material, at death. We prepare when we dispense of egoism and all pride well before. "Let us approach with a sincere heart and in absolute trust, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water," says Hebrews 10. In this way do we find our true selves, while those who cloak themselves with what the world offers find that when they lose everything which we all do upon death they gravitate to an area of fog. Only God allows us to know ourselves. "I am He Who also suddenly illuminates and lifts up a humble soul, so that it can take and receive in short time the true reason of the wisdom of God more perfectly than another who studies ten years in the schools and lacks humility. I teach without sound of words, without diversity of opinions, without desire for honor, and without strife and arguments. I am He Who teaches all the people to despise earthly things, to loathe things that are present, to seek and savor eternal things, to flee honors, to bear patiently all evil words, to put their trust wholly in Me, to desire nothing without Me, and above all things fervently to love Me," said Jesus in His classic locution to Thomas á Kempis in The Imitation of Christ.

[resources: A Life of Blessings and Confession; Michael Brown retreat in Baton Rouge, Louisiana]

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