Generator Jesus

October 2, 2022

Charis

Where does your power come from?

When The Hurricane Came

When Hurricane Ian came through last weekend, my family was prepared for any power outages or fallen trees. Since we live outside the city limits, our whole house is run by electricity. This means when the power goes out, everything stops: our lights, our microwave, oven, and stove, our refrigerator and freezer, and our plumbing. We filled bathtubs with water, charged anything we needed charged, and made sure we could get to our generator.

Our power lasted all throughout Friday. Praise the Lord for that! And then about 9:30 PM, the dreaded outage came...

I heard someone going down the stairs and peeked out of my room. "Do you need help with the generator Dad?"

"Sure."

I changed into some warmer clothes and felt my way down the dark stairs, then slipped out into the garage.

We moved a few things out of the way and pulled the generator out. When my dad opened the side door and trudged outside for the gas, I stared at the downpour outside. The wind blew the rain sideways, and darkness dominated this night. I couldn't wait for our generator to be running.

When he came back in, I shone the flashlight for him as he poured the gasoline into the generator's tank. Some excess liquid poured onto the outside of the generator. He stopped midway. "Let's dry this up. Can you get the paper towels?"

I retrieved the paper towels and dispensed some to him. The paper towels soaked up the extra water (which we hoped had not mixed with leaked gasoline), and my dad picked them up to dispose of them. One of them dropped into the generator's gas tank.

We both groaned.

So now we spent many a minute fishing for that soggy paper towel in vain. We tried wrenches, scissors, even using plastic pencils like chopsticks. Why did this have to happen now? We needed our power! Without it our food in the fridge would spoil, and we'd have a much harder time with everything else. How I wished we could just ignore the problem and start the generator anyway, but we both knew it wouldn't work properly if we did.

Finally, my dad adjusted a wrench and lowered it in. I watched with anticipation. It felt like the most provoking round of Operation a person could play. At least there was no beeping when the wrench hit the sides, else we would have lost a million times over!

He managed to grab it with the wrench and gently lifted. It was out!!!!!

We transported the generator outside into the pouring rain. I tightened my sweatshirt hood and helped him plug the cord into the main breaker. He set the breaker to the right setting. I stepped out of the deep puddle by the breaker, thanking God for my waterproof sandals. If I had been using my old ones, the fake leather cover would've hissed at me for months.

And finally he tried starting the generator. He corrected some settings a few times, tried again, and it started!!! How happy I was when I saw our garage lights turn on, and thought of the showers I could now take, of how it'd now be possible for Mom to cook and bake, and how I could fly down our stairs in full light!!!

How important power is!

Jesus The Generator

Where is our power source found? Of course, I hope we find a lot of it in Jesus, but sometimes I find I turn to outside sources--family, friends, activities. When the storms of life come, however, and a tree knocks down the power line connecting me to those sources, what happens then? If we trust too much in outside sources, our life shuts down and we find ourselves in darkness.

The good news is, we always have access into a power source: Jesus. And if Jesus were a generator, here's how He'd help us when we face our hurricanes:

1.) Jesus gives us light. "When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'" (John 8:12, NIV)

2.) Jesus gives us spiritual food. "Then Jesus declared, 'I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.'" (John 6:35, NIV) When our power goes out, we can't cook anything, and any food in our fridges and freezers will spoil. There's goes any meat, milk, yogurt, ice, and most importantly, our triple chocolate truffle ice cream! But when Jesus is our power source, He nourishes our spiritual lives with good food.

3.) Jesus washes us clean. "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:11, NIV) Just like without our power we can't take showers, so without Jesus we'll never be clean. When He's our power source, we can be sure He'll forgive our sins, drive is in the right direction, and make us more like Him!

4.) Lastly, Jesus brings us comfort. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, NKJV). It can be depressing without power, and we can feel alone. But sometimes those breaks in the power lines help us realize, "Wait, I have an ultimate Power Source right here!" And when we do lean completely on Jesus and our power is turned back on, we appreciate all the little things we hardly thought about before we lost them. God doesn't stop at barely giving us what we need to survive, and then leaves us to ourselves--He willingly gives us what we need and will walk with us through every hurricane.

"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Romans 15:13, NKJV)

Jesus really is better than any generator! My challenge this week is that we evaluate where we've plugged in the cord. Is it into outside sources? Or is it into the ultimate Power Source?