Last night we experienced our first power outage since moving to the East Coast eight months ago.
My husband and I were having a relaxing night on the couch together, right in the middle of a movie (and thoroughly enjoying the sound of the thunderstorm) when the lights flickered for a moment and then everything went dark and silent. We waited, held our breath, thinking it may all go back on any minute, but it didn’t.
At first it seemed kind of fun and exciting- dark, super quiet house, sound of thunderstorm outside, candles. We opened up our front blinds and sat on the couch just watching it for a few minutes. Quite frankly, I liked it more than the movie we were watching (that’s the romantic in me), but it didn’t take even ten minutes of no AC blowing cold air, and no ceiling fans running circulating it, that it started to get hot quick.
I went around the house opening all the windows to try to at least have some air flowing in, but it was very minimal relief because of the heat and humidity outside. Even still, it was fun for a little while…something different…something exciting, but it didn’t take long for my husband to call it a night, and go to bed. Me, on the other-hand, I wanted to enjoy the quiet house and watch Mother Nature’s show, so I stayed up soaking it all in.
As it started to get hotter and hotter, I began to worry about everything in our fridge and freezer thawing and the possibility of it all going bad (I literally had just gotten groceries that day). I finally called it a night myself and decided to try to go to sleep in the heat.
Needless to say, the night was a long one. I felt as though I woke up every 20 minutes. It felt so stuffy and stale, and I longed to be able to turn on my ceiling fan even for some type of air flow! I almost felt like I couldn’t breathe! I’ve never lived in this type of heat and it was all new to me! I prayed a couple times in the night that God would please help the power line people to get the power up and running again, and I highly considered going outside to my car and sleeping in it with the air blowing full force! It was an odd, desperate feeling to feel as though I couldn’t escape the heat!
Finally, at about 3:30 in the morning, everything kicked back on. I jumped up and went through the house closing the windows, turning off lights and made sure the AC was back up and running. RELIEF! It was instant and I was able to get back in bed with the house again humming, trying to cool back off, and everything running again as it should. I finally drifted into a deep, peaceful sleep for the last few hours of the night.
Upon waking this morning (to a much cooler home and power as needed) I started thinking about how much we take power in general for granted. Think about it: without power in our homes, we literally would feel as though we were living in the “dark” ages- no AC, no washer and dryer, no cell phones, no TV or electronics, no stove or microwave, not even a cold refrigerator to keep our food fresh.
Electricity is something that we have grown so accustomed to having that we never even stop to realize what life would be like without it, until we are forced to by a power outage that is out of our control. Yet every day, thousands of watts of electricity run into our homes to keep them (and us) running, and we don’t even stop to think about it! Watts of power into our lives everywhere we go that are working for us- be it pleasure, entertainment, work or convenience, that we don’t even think about. We expect it to always work for us, and if it stops, we expect someone to get it up and going again. It’s the power source that runs our lives. Or is it?
What about the Ultimate Power in our lives: God. Isn’t this often how we treat Him as well? We forget all about Him and the good things He is doing in our lives day in and day out…all of the things he’s helping us with behind the scenes, the things that he is protecting us from and working out in our favor, yet we are completely taking it all for granted. We don’t even see Him as The power behind it all, or how without Him, our lives would be in chaos!
We go about our daily lives barely even taking the time to stop and thank Him at all, yet still expecting that everything in our lives will run as it should. But what if suddenly, the Power goes out, and our lives go dark? How quickly would we recognize where it was all coming from? How uncomfortable would we have to get to start to really want that Source back on and working for us again, and to realize that there is no other way to get plugged in if it’s not to Him?
Would God do that, withdraw His power from us? He wouldn’t want our lives in chaos or darkness would he? He is Love after all, and Love wouldn’t do that…right?
Actually, it’s because of love that He would do that, especially if it’s the only way to finally get our attention, to help us to realize that without Him, our lives would be very dark and uncomfortable and headed for ultimate disaster.
Would you want that for your children? Or because you love them, would you do anything to get their attention, anything to save them, even if it meant you would have to turn your back on them for a period of time, knowing it would save them from misery and death in the long run?
God is our Power source and we must stay plugged in to stay fresh! Like my refrigerator (our food survived luckily) the power was out for only a few hours, but had it been out for much longer, the food would have slowly started to rot and stink and go bad.
There’s a reason we never unplug our refrigerators, and there’s a reason we should never unplug from God. We wouldn’t know it by looking at the fridge from the outside, (and it would take a very long time for the inside to stink so bad that it was seeping out) but eventually- left unplugged from it’s source, the stink would overtake the entire house!
And that’s us! If we stay un-plugged from our Source (Jesus), we will start to stink and rot inside, and it will eventually affect our entire lives , and the lives of those around us, and ultimately lead to our eternal death.
We need to stay plugged into God every day to stay fresh; praying and talking to Him throughout our day, thanking Him and living with grateful hearts for all that He is, reading His Word, worshipping Him! He alone is our Source and without Him, things get dark and start to rot pretty quickly inside.
I pray it never takes a Power outage from God to get my attention, but if it does, it’s only because He loves me enough to do it! And just like I was waiting expectantly last night for the power company to get it all back on- if an outage does happen, I know Jesus will be waiting expectantly for me to return to His arms, my Source, where He will instantly get me plugged all back in!
