Always On

The day we moved into the Garden City parsonage, the lights were out. The power company had been given instructions to come and read the meter, but not to disconnect the service. Apparently, the standard procedure is to disconnect service when a technician is sent out to read the meter; so either he didn't read the work order carefully or whoever was responsible for writing it up left out that vital part of the instructions.

While we were waiting for power to be restored, we heard that it was not that uncommon to experience an interruption in service from time to time in our neighborhood. Some of the outages came during storms, but then others just seemed to happen for no apparent reason. I am happy to say that we haven’t experienced that many interruptions in service in the past year or two, although they did seem to come pretty regularly the first few months we were here.

There are parts of the world where most people rarely have dependable electrical service. They know that most evenings will be spent in the dark. Our visit to Kenya while Kathy was serving there with the Peace Corps made us more aware of that reality. Some evenings the power would stay on all night; and then other evenings we would try to make sure all our preparations for the next day were completed before the sun went down, because we didn't want to have to sort through our luggage with a flashlight in our mouth. There are parts of Honduras, Mexico and Belize where I have also found this intermittent service to be the rule rather than the exception.

Jesus promised his followers that he would not leave them alone. He would send a Comforter. The Holy Spirit would remind them of the things Jesus had taught them; but this same Holy Spirit would do much more than that. The Holy Spirit would give them the power to do great things—even greater things than Jesus had done. Furthermore, Jesus promised that this power would be available to them always. On day of Pentecost—the birthday of the Church--this promise was fulfilled. 

The church doesn't need to wait for the power to come on to start doing the work that God is calling it to do. Jesus has promised and God has sent the Holy Spirit to provide all the power the community of faith needs to accomplish great things—and great things are happening through Christ’s church. Would you join me in praying that more believers would claim the power and quit acting like the lights have been switched off? Then the church would truly be the blessing God has called us to be.