Things of Power

I think recently I've noticed how different the power of God is to the power of man, and the things God considers powerful as opposed to us.
Our side of the spectrum is more and more clear cut as culture allows brutal levels of honesty into acceptable spheres of thought and behaviour. Money. Success. Information.Beauty. Status-these things are well known and loved by our world.
But God uses very different things to work through; it is very true that it is the weak that he uses to shame the strong. His Word, the most powerful of all, that which can divide soul and spirit is contained in a small but easily accessible (well, this side of the east-west schism) book. So accessible and simple in fact that for this very reason many people doubt the same power it testifies to. God's creativity is so well-formed and rationaled- if they do not listen to the Word of Moses and the Prophets they will not believe, even if someone rises from the dead, (Luke 16) thus you may as well give them the best opportunity of coming into contact with such a Word as this, and in such a form that they are not confronted by its power but drawn to it slowly as they watch their Lord's mystery unfold.
We also understand that our own words hold great power- they are the words we speak both to our Lord and about him to people everywhere. In Genesis the Tower of Babel was halted by God confusing the people's language, and in Acts 2 we see the gospel sent out again by people speaking in many different languages. Our parents give declaration at our baptism that they desire for us to live with Jesus as Lord, we pray a prayer at our conversion, and understand the weight of marriage vows. Our world mightn't value words as powerful, but God has created them as instruments to be used for his glory with abundant power.
God also values faith, and gives it power. By faith Abraham was credited with righteousness and we understand too that by retaining this same faith, we too can be transformed from sinners to righteous people, surely a power that was beyond the OT Law (though that is another story for another day). Part and parcel with this faith is trust, and particularly in God's promises. A faithful God, for a faithful people.
God gives power to relationships and sex, not that they might invoke status of one man or woman over another but that by sex within marriage status might actually be relinquished, the two becoming the same person; in doing so teaching us more about the trinitarian relationship in the Godhead and his relationship with us. In fact, in all three of these examples, His Word, faith and relationships he gives power to things that allow us to learn more about Himself (and as a result ourselves also).
I believe that is why God doesn't give a stuff how much you own, how educated you are, how successful or beautiful or well-known you are, because none of these things teach you about him, and thus ourselves, and so for a while they allow us to pretend that we wield power we don't. But God offers to us power of a different kind, and longs for us to take it, that forever we might continue to grow and so bring glory to His name.