2 Corinthians 4:7 (AMP)
However, we possess this precious treasure [the divine Light of the Gospel] in [frail, human] vessels of earth, that the grandeur and exceeding greatness of the power may be shown to be from God and not from ourselves.
Many years ago, we experienced a severe ice storm in our area of the state. Our power was out for two days, and as you can surmise, life as we knew it was rudely and without warning interrupted. We had no heat, lights and only a limited menu from which to choose, since we obviously could not cook. Bread and milk? Check that off the list, but even till this day I have not tried a milk sandwich. It is amazing how much we depend on power to make life work.
After two days of the cold and darkness, I called the power company. In those days, you could get a live customer service representative. No doubt she had a stressful job, and I am confident she had a script to follow- “I am sorry your power is out. We are working and doing our best so it may be restored as soon as possible.” While that was true as far as I knew, doing their best was not restoring my power and getting my life back to normal. After all, it had been two days! Her next statement, “Sir is there anything else I can help you with?” was the wrong question to ask someone who was as frustrated and desperate as we were. I proceeded to complain to her, and in the process, compared my situation to all those within a close proximity to my house. “Miss, here is the situation, there are plenty of crews in my area that are working. As a matter of fact, they are within a half mile of my residence. They must be doing their job because they are ‘lit up’, and while life is good for them, apparently I have been left out”! My next statement more likely than not came close to pushing her over the edge. Her stress level was probably to the point she was thinking, ‘they don’t pay me enough to deal with ‘crazies’ like this’. I shared with her, no let me put this bluntly, I threatened her.
I had ventured outside in the cold icy weather, and walked the streets of the neighborhood surveying the damage. On my recon tour, I discovered a pole where the ‘fuse’ had kicked out. Oh, yeah there is the problem. Just a simple ‘fuse’ that was not connecting the power to my house. Of course, I surmised, it should be very simple to fix. Just climb the pole pull up a stick tied on to a hand line. Then with a careful push with the stick, bingo, power connected.
With this bit, and it was a ‘bit’ of information in mind I had made the call. I proceeded to tell her with great confidence I might add. I was a utility worker, and by the way, not the same utility, and I had discovered the problem. And this ‘problem’ was obvious and a simple fix. At this point in the conversation is where I freaked her out. I shared with her the common-sense approach I was going to take to solve my power outage. I MYSELF was going to take my pole climbing gear, climb the pole, pull up the wooden stick, and push the kicked fuse back in. With one self-made tool and one precise push, my power, and thus my life will get back to normal.
Of course this threw her way off script. She began to inform me how dangerous this was, and I could be killed. “Sir you need to let the men who know what they are doing take care of your problem. Of course, I was so frustrated with my situation I could not hear her voice above the noise of my situation. She calmed me down by asking me to hold. Within a few minutes she was assuring me that something would be done in a matter of 30 minutes, if I would just trust them, the folks who knew about power outages, to restore my power. Within just a few minutes I saw the power trucks winding their way down my street and within the hour lights on, heat working and food could be cooked.
What is my point? That day I learned an important truth. When I asked the men who were trained and skilled in their work, was the fuse placement easy? And they began to grin. They began to inform me, that while the fuse was disconnected, and it being disconnected was the visible reason for my power outage, the fuse was only the symptom. There was something that had caused the fuse to kick out. It was a limb from a pine tree that had become overloaded from an accumulation of ice. The limb cracked under pressure from this ice storm, and resulted in the fuse to kicking out.
To the untrained eye all I could see was the power being out, but the cause was hidden. Way back down in the woods where I never thought to look, was the problem and that problem had to be removed before power could be restored and lives could return to normal.
Are you suffering from a ‘power outage’? Life is not working as you thought it would. Do you try to ‘fix’ it yourself? Or do you call others and complain? Maybe there is a veiled threat that you think may get someone’s attention. Or maybe you carry it a little further, and resolve to do everything you can, or anything you can to get your life working again? Is your ‘fuse’ kicked out? Then read on, help may be as close or easy as making a simple phone call to Crossway Ministries.
When people contact us a Crossway, the call is usually about a ‘life outage’ issue. In a brief voice message, people share about their need. And for the most part desperation, frustration, and or exasperation is bleeds through. They are seeking a solution. In most cases once they come in and tell their story it contains information of all they have tried to fix it. ‘Put the fuse back in,’ and of course their efforts did not work. What many do not realize is the problem as they see it, is not really the problem. The problem is back down the line. It is something the Bible describes as flesh. Flesh may not be what you think it is.
At Crossway, if you will make the call, and set up an appointment with us, we will share with you, not only what the flesh is, but God’s solution. You will discover that our ‘power’ for life comes from God. And He is always in the area ready to set you free from the ‘limbs loaded down with ice’ that is causing your desperate situation.