Outlet

All our work seemed in vain once the lights went out.

Yes, it was Easter Sunday. The thousands of invitations had gone door-to-door and church members had been inviting friends and family to join in the celebration.

But overnight the power went out. Some people overslept because their alarm clocks were off. Others didn't have hot water to clean up with so they would feel presentable in public. Some got distracted by the outage and forgot that it was Sunday or lost track of time. Others figured we'd cancel the services. All these folks missed church that day.

And those were the people who attend faithfully.

Since the area of the outage roughly coincided with the area we'd done all our marketing, who knows how many others who were considering attending didn't?

So, on what is historically the busiest days for churches across the globe, we had but a handful of worshippers gathered in a cold, dark church.

But strangely enough, one of our electric outlets worked just fine that morning. The only place with any power for several city blocks was the socket right next to the cross. We were able to plug in our sound system and have music to sing together in our celebration of resurrection.

Despite the cold, dark, confused world around us, we found the one source of power to help us lift our voices and hearts.

I have to think of those women who, after a very confusing week, went to a cold, dark tomb. Well beyond their imagination they found the one outlet of Power in their world. In our world.

And though there were just a few of them, the disciples soon followed and within a couple of months there were thousands drawing from that Source.

So when my world is cold, dark, and confusing, I hope I can remember to go back to the cross seeking the power of Resurrection that will turn my voice to praise. That work is never in vain and I'll find Easter all over again.

To you, Lord, be all glory, honor, and power.

Bill

The gas & electric bill came late in the day on Thursday. It was the first power bill we received since the expansion of our building so we were anticipating a big jump in how much we would owe. We had, in fact, budgeted for a ten-fold increase.

Even with that preparation I was still more than a little surprised. The bill was 40X (yes, forty times) the previous month's bill. In fact, this power bill was higher than our typical monthly offering receipts.

Dilemma.

This bill was too big for any specific prayer I knew. "Well, what are You going to do about THIS?" was about all I could offer.

I then started looking for His answer in all the typical places.

I called folks who had supervisory capacity over the ministry. They agreed it was a problem and told me to solve it.

The next day I called the power company to find out payment options. Their option was to pay it or have the gas and electric turned off.

I then did the math to see how much I could make at a part time job. That's when I realized that even if I worked full time as a cashier at Target I would not make half as much as the power company wanted each month.

What to do?

You can call it denial. You can call it faith. You can call it shock. You can call it whatever you want, but the fact of the matter was that the problem was just way too big for me to do anything about that day. Since I didn't see Him doing anything in particular, I decided to get a good night's sleep and continue with the things I had scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.

When I got home from Saturday afternoon's meetings I found an envelope in the mail from an acquaintance in another city. We hadn't corresponded in a very long time and I found it odd that, since they'd never been to the church, the envelope bore its address.

Inside was a note saying they'd been thinking of our congregation this week and felt led to help in some way. The check was twice the amount of the power bill.

Wow.

The money and the hope that came with it carried us for a couple of months, at which point we discovered that the power company hadn't read our gas and electric meters; they had simply estimated what they thought we would use.

When they came out and actually read the meters they adjusted our balance accordingly.

Our bill read $0000.00 for the next four months.

I liked His solution just fine.

Show yourself strong, Lord, in my life and in the world around me.