Spiritual Blackout

During the blackout, did you ever walk into a room and automatically reach up to turn on a light switch? Did you end up stopping yourself from doing this after a time or two? And were you disappointed each time that the power that would normally make it work wasn't there?

I think that sometimes in our lives our spiritual "power" goes out and we're left in the dark. It may be that we're going through the motions without real sincerity- reading our scriptures, saying our prayers, going to church- the equivalent of turning on a light switch that has no power. Or maybe we're living in the dark and not really aware of it or don't really care until the sun sets and it becomes dark and scary, which I would compare to knowing the things we should be doing but not bothering to do them, or possibly having sins that we should be repenting of but not taking the steps to do so. Either way we're still in a blackout and need to work to get that power back so that we have light in our lives.

Most of us waited for hours or days to have our power restored by the power company's crews. Imagine if those crews didn't bother to show up until we actually made a call and specifically invited them to come fix our particular problem. I think we'd probably still be without power! But with Christ we do have to make the effort to have our "power" restored. He's generous enough to give us all the power we want, but we have to do certain things to bring it into our homes and our lives.

Christ's power works much differently than electricity. Electricity, as we've seen, can be turned off or stopped. Christ's light cannot. It doesn't go out during the storms of life. It's always there. It doesn't need anything to generate it or distribute it. All it needs is an outlet, or someone to turn on the switch. I'd say that he provides us all the power we need without cost, but this wouldn't be true. He requires payments of sincere efforts, humility, sacrifice, service, and love. Without our payments He can't send as much of His power as He'd like to, and we'll be sitting in the dark. I don't know about you, but I rather enjoy all the comforts and conveniences that come from having Christ's power in my life!

The times that I feel the lights dimming in my life are the times that I know I need to get up and turn on the switch and pay more attention to Him. I may have let too many distractions sneak in or have just gotten lazy in my efforts or let life's disappointments get me down. Whatever the case, life is so much better with His light that it's worth every effort to keep it on! I can live without electricity but not without Christ's power.