A Lack of Power

 

 

“There’s something wrong,” Elaine said.  “The food is cold!”

We had just gotten home from church and strangely enough, no aromas of cooking food wafted out when we opened the door into our house.  Only our dog Cosmo greeted us as we entered, and we certainly weren’t planning to eat him.

“Is the crock pot on?”  I asked.  It has happened before that the crock pot didn’t get turned on.  For some reason, crock pots aren’t very effective when the switch is turned to ‘off.’

“Yes, it’s on,” Elaine said.

My mind immediately jumped to the idea that our crock pot was broken, although in my experience, they are fairly indestructible devices.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the Navy Seals start to carry crockpots with them on missions – at least if they were just a little smaller.

“Oh, I see,” Elaine said.  “It wasn’t plugged in.  Well, I guess that explains it.”

I gave a sigh of relief.  At least our crockpot wasn’t broken.  Although, it begs the question – with all of the cordless items on the market, why haven’t crockpots gone wireless?

There are cordless vacuum sweepers, drills, saws, and even toasters, but cordless crockpots are few and far between.  Beyond which, since our kitchen is actually replete with electrical outlets – and I have been paying our power bill regularly – having the sort of crock pot you plug in really isn’t a problem.

Fortunately, we are a household that not only boasts a crock pot, but we also own an Instant Pot, and the contents of the crock pot were transferred to this second device and after it was plugged in, cooking commenced. 

Power is one of those things that is fairly important these days.  In the days of the pioneers, power had mostly to do with the number of horses or oxen you owned, with which you could break up the land or haul heavy loads.  Most of the menial chores that we do with electricity were done by manual labor.

I can turn a lever on my sink, and an electric well pump fills a pressure tank which pushes water out of the sink.  A couple of hundred years ago, I would have had to lower a bucket into a well and raise the water one bucket at a time.

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (II Timothy 1:7)

The authors of the New Testament wrote frequently about power.  They didn’t know about electrical power or diesel motors.  They had never heard of the Hoover Dam and would have had no concept of the 4 billion Kilowatt-hours of energy it generates every year.  What they knew was that Jesus had come to earth to give them power and they could see evidence of that power in their own lives and in the lives of others in their church community.

That power still exists today.  The problem is not that God’s power is less or that His hand is shortened, but simply that people don’t take advantage of that power. 

Like an unplugged crock pot sitting on a counter, they struggle through life, wondering why it is so hard.  Fears overwhelm them and self-control eludes them when victory lies just a short distance away.

For God has offered us power and love, if we only plug in to His will for our lives.