When Heaven’s Power Breaks Through on Ice
The ice gleamed under the fluorescent lights of the arena. Breaths hung visible in the cold air. Fifty-five games into the season—fifty wins, three ties, and just two losses. One more game to decide it all. Championship on the line.
But before we get to the final eighteen seconds, let me take you to a different moment. A moment two thousand years ago when Jesus gathered his followers close and made them a promise that would change the world.
“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto Me.” (Acts 1:8)
Power. Not just any power. Dunamis power.
It’s a Greek word that carries more weight than our English translation can bear. Dunamis: explosive ability, might, strength. The very word from which we derive “dynamite.” Not a gentle nudge or a slight advantage—but earth-shattering, chain-breaking, impossible-made-possible power.
And Jesus promised it would be ours.
Locker Room Whispers
I’ve often wondered if the disciples felt like my son’s hockey team that night in the locker room before the championship game. Nervous. Expectant. Aware of the challenge ahead but unsure if they had what it took to face it.
When the coach invited me in—knowing I was a pastor and perhaps sensing the boys needed something more than tactical advice—I stood among the equipment bags and sweaty pads, looking at young faces tense with anticipation.
“Boys,” I said, “there’s a word in the Bible I want to share with you tonight. Dunamis.”
The word felt strange on their ears. Foreign. Ancient. But sometimes the oldest words carry the freshest power.
“It’s Greek. It means explosive power—the kind that breaks through impossible situations. The kind that shows up when you’ve given everything and then need something more than everything.”
I shared for five minutes about this power that doesn’t originate in muscle or strategy but comes from somewhere beyond us. Then I prayed over them—these boys in hockey gear who suddenly seemed like disciples being commissioned for battle—and I walked out.
What happened next still gives me chills.
Ten minutes later, they emerged from the locker room, led by their captain, shouting with unified voices: “DUNAMIS! DUNAMIS! DUNAMIS!”
Sometimes, heaven’s vocabulary finds its way into the most unexpected places.
Eighteen Seconds
The game was everything a championship should be. Back and forth. Physical. One goal scored, then matched. With eighteen seconds left on the clock, the score remained tied 1-1.
I sat beside my wife Robin in the stands, having told her about the pre-game locker room moment. The arena fell into that eerie silence that only comes in the final moments of something consequential. The face-off was in our zone. Our team captain, Brandon, crouched in the circle, waiting for the puck to drop.
In that suspended moment between preparation and action, my wife suddenly stood and shouted with everything in her lungs: “DUNAMIS, BRANDON! DUNAMIS!”
Her voice cut through the silence like a prophet’s call.
The referee dropped the puck. Brandon won the face-off, snatching it to the half-circle and then—as if the word itself had become fuel in his veins—he sped up ice. A solo run. Weaving through defensive players. Through the neutral zone. Into enemy territory.
Three seconds left on the clock.
The shot.
The goal.
Pandemonium.
When Dunamis Shows Up
I’ve thought about that night many times in the years since. Not just because my son’s team won a championship—though I admit that part still makes me smile—but because I witnessed something more significant than sports. I watched young men embrace a truth that many adult believers struggle to grasp: God’s power is not theoretical. It’s practical. Applicable. Available.
The Holy Spirit’s dunamis isn’t restricted to church buildings or religious moments. It shows up on hockey rinks and in hospital rooms. In job interviews and family crises. In addiction battles and marriage conflicts. In any place where someone dares to believe that God’s power can break through when human ability has reached its limit.
The early disciples understood this in ways that transformed history. They were ordinary people—fishermen, tax collectors, political zealots—who should have disappeared into the anonymity of history. Instead, empowered by the Holy Spirit, they turned the world upside down.
What changed them from fearful followers hiding in an upper room to courageous witnesses standing in public squares?
Dunamis.
Acts 4:31 tells us, “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”
Notice the outcome of the Spirit’s filling: boldness. Not just emotion. Not just spiritual experiences. But courage to speak and act in ways that would have been impossible in their own strength.
Playing Afraid or Playing Empowered
I wonder how many of us are playing the game of life afraid.
Afraid we don’t have what it takes. Afraid we’ll fail if we really try. Afraid to speak truth in a culture that prefers comfortable lies. Afraid to stand when everyone else is sitting. Afraid to attempt what God has called us to do because the opposition seems too strong or the clock seems to be running out.
The antidote to this fear isn’t more effort. It’s not better strategy. It’s not even more faith in ourselves.
It’s dunamis.
Paul understood this when he wrote to Timothy, a young leader overwhelmed by his responsibilities: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)
That word “power” is dunamis again. Paul is reminding Timothy—and us—that we have access to explosive spiritual capability that doesn’t originate in human strength but in divine presence.
Eighteen Seconds Left
Perhaps you feel like there are just eighteen seconds left on the clock of your situation.
The marriage that seems beyond repair. The addiction that keeps winning despite your best efforts. The child who has wandered so far you can barely see them anymore. The dream that seems impossible given your limited resources. The witness you need to be in your workplace where faith is misunderstood or even mocked.
The enemy has you pinned in your defensive zone, and time is running out.
This is when dunamis matters most.
In the final moments. In the impossible scenarios. In the “too late” and “too hard” and “too far gone” situations that make up so much of human experience.
The same Spirit who hovered over the waters of creation, who raised Christ from the dead, who transformed cowardly disciples into world-changers—that Spirit dwells in you.
“If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11)
There is no deadness He cannot revive. No situation so frozen that His warmth cannot thaw it. No game so far gone that His power cannot turn it around—often in the final seconds when all hope seems lost.
Living in Dunamis
Those hockey players never forgot that championship night. Years later, my son tells me, they still occasionally text each other the word: Dunamis.
It became more than a motivational speech for them. It became a reminder of what’s possible when you tap into something beyond yourself.
What would change in our lives if we woke up each morning whispering “dunamis” as our feet hit the floor? What would transform in our relationships, our work, our ministry if we approached each challenge not in our own strength but in the explosive power of the Holy Spirit?
Acts 1:8 isn’t just about receiving power—it’s about receiving power for a purpose: “You shall be witnesses unto Me.”
The dunamis of God isn’t given to make us spiritual superheroes or to fulfill our personal ambitions. It’s given so that our lives might testify to a greater reality—the reality of a God who breaks through human impossibilities like a hockey player slicing through defense in the final seconds of a championship game.
Your life is meant to be evidence that God is real. Your transformed marriage is meant to be a witness. Your freedom from addiction is meant to be a witness. Your courage in the workplace is meant to be a witness. Your persistence in prayer is meant to be a witness. Your love for the unlovable is meant to be a witness.
And none of it happens without dunamis.
The Final Whistle
I don’t know what championship you’re playing for today. I don’t know what scoreboard shows a tie with seconds remaining. I don’t know what opposition has you pinned against the boards, gasping for breath and strength.
But I know this: there is a power available to you that doesn’t depend on your skill, your history, or your circumstances.
The Holy Spirit of God—the same Spirit that hovered over creation, raised Christ, and transformed disciples—that Spirit is present and active and available. Right now. Where you are. As you are.
So maybe it’s time to emerge from the locker room of fear and hesitation, shouting the ancient word that still carries modern power:
Dunamis.
Maybe it’s time to hear heaven call your name in the silent moment before the final face-off:
Dunamis, [your name]! Dunamis!
And then, empowered by something beyond explanation, to break free and speed toward the goal that seemed impossible just moments before.
Because with eighteen seconds left in the game, God’s still writing stories of breakthrough that will be told for generations to come.
Stories that end not in defeat, but in pandemonium.
