The Inner Circle

“It’s all who you know,” they say. If you want to get ahead, it really helps to know the right people in the right places. People on the inside, in the inner circle of influence. If they know you, they’ll be more likely to use their positions to help you. If they like you, or if you’ve done something for them, that’s even better. 

The trouble is that most of us were not born into powerful families. We don’t naturally rub shoulders with people in influential positions. Which means that if you want to get ahead professionally, socially, or any other way, you have to start with the people you already know, and work from their circles of influence into the more powerful circles above them. If you make it that far, you’ll see that the inner circle is not one circle at all—it’s a maze of layers within layers and circles within circles, a labyrinth of increasing levels of power and influence. Wherever you are in the maze, there is always a circle just above you—a circle with a little more power to leverage for your goals, a little more potential to answer your problems, and a little more influence to unlock your dreams. To work your way up to it, you have to develop the right connections, impress the right people, and maybe benefit them somehow so that they will also want to benefit you. If it works, you’ll be well positioned to see that just beyond that higher circle is another, even higher circle, with even more potential. And beyond them, the same. How will you get those ears to listen to you? If they do listen, how will you leverage that access to gain the attention of the higher circles you will find beyond them? Where does it end? 

It does end. There is a top, above which no other power or government or influence can reach. The highest, most inner circle of power and authority is the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—the God who spoke the universe into existence and rules it absolutely. But this inner circle is different. He doesn’t play by our rules of social politics. He is not corrupt, or corruptible. You can’t manipulate him. He is perfectly just, perfectly holy, never swayed by underhanded deals or promises of personal favours. And yet, amazingly, he is welcoming.

It might seem presumptuous to think that we could ever have access to this innermost circle, to the nerve centre of power and authority over everything, ever. And it would be, if God himself hadn’t told us to come. Through the work of Jesus Christ, God’s children are invited, and encouraged, to “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). We don’t need the assistance of holier people that Jesus might like better than us—he is, himself, the one who loved us enough to die for us to save us from sin and make us his people. We don’t need to go through anyone else’s access to him—we can have our own. And with access like that, why would we worry ourselves over the shifting power politics and never-ending labyrinths of all the little inner circles on earth? If you belong to Jesus, you can go straight to the top, straight to the innermost of all circles. You can’t have Jesus’ throne, but you can have his ear, and you can trust that the one who gave his life for you will give you what is right for you. His power is limitless. His love is already proven. He has invited you to come, and you can. Right now.