Power Cuts

This morning we’ve experienced two power cuts.

I like many of you I suspect, use a laptop and so the first I know of a power cut was when I come to send an email or post a blog and find the broadband connection is down.

Now my laptop functions perfectly well without a connection to the internet. It can compute things, write things down and remember them, it can display information it has remembered and function pretty well.  It even has it’s own source of power so that it can work without being plugged in to the mains and it will continue to work like that for as long as the battery lasts.

The battery will last a long time if I put the computer in sleep mode.  Because I’m not asking the computer to do anything, it draws very little power.  If I use the laptop and turn down the brightness of the screen and change the power settings to idle when I’m not using it for a couple of minutes, I could expect the battery to last quite a long while.  But if I use it normally, the battery will last only a few hours and then it will turn off.  A computer without power is useless to me. It becomes a paperweight at best and a barrier to completing my work tasks for the day.

Even if I conserved it’s power, there’s only so long that I can be effective in my job without it. Sooner or later I’d need to check a system or send/receive an email, look over new work requests in our call management system or call someone on my voip phone. All of these things require a communications connection, and that connection needs power to work!

It struck me that I can sometimes be like a laptop disconnected from power.  I can function, but can only recall knowledge I already know. I can work things out, but without the benefit of Godly direction and I can serve but my reserves of energy are quickly depleted. It is important to remain plugged in to the triune God.  This is not to say that he ‘leaves us’ once we are His, but rather that we choose to ignore or work with our relationship in place (a bit like when I choose to ignore the satnav’s directions or say yes and no in what I hope are the right places in a conversation with my wife when I really want to be doing something else)..  Sooner or later (usually sooner) I recognise that I’ve become unplugged and I need to reconnect with God. I need to seek his spirit and his direction, I need to be thankful and cognisant of his salvation, his grace and his mercy. I need the refresh of the Spirit’s power, I need to draw from God’s love and tenderness, I need to confront the sin that so easily entangles and find the forgiveness of the father.

Lord, thank you for your steadfastness which goes on and on and on. There is nowhere I can run from you, and no place that I can hide. Thank you for your voice that remains speaking if only I will listen. Forgive me when I think my ways are better than yours or when I go off like a bull in a china shop and drain my resources faster than you provide them because I’m not doing what you say. Thank you that you restore me when I fail. Thank you for your power that works in me to fulfil your purposes.

Check Out Rick Warrens book: GODS POWER TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE (Living with Purpose) for ways of staying plugged in and making a difference to your life