Our church celebrated its annual "All-Church Birthday Party" last evening. There were twelve tables, each labeled for one of the months of the year, with a cake and decorations according to a theme for the month. Our people sat at the table of their birth month and ate cake and visited. It was a wonderful time of fellowship made all the sweeter for me by the appearance of one of the young men from the First Christian Church in Mount Vernon, Kentucky.
Clark Mullins showed up right at time for the festivities to begin. He now lives and works in Georgetown and decided to come out for what he thought was going to be Sunday evening service. We invited him back to the house afterward. I rode home with him and my wife, Becky, followed later in my car. As he and I made the turn onto our street we both noticed how dark it was. We got to the house and got out of the car and looked at the unlit street lamp in front of our house. It was then that my wife showed up and I expected our garage door to go up. It didn't and Becky wanted to know what was wrong with my garage door opener.
Power outage. It was black as could be in our cul-de-sac. I fumbled with the keys getting the front door open and we made our way inside. Becky searched through a drawer in the kitchen with the aid of Clark's cell phone as he opened it up and its light made enough light for Becky to find some matches. She had just found the matches and gotten three candles lit when the power came back on. Clark and I sat and talked and watched a little of the World Series game. He left around 10:30. Then I had some work to do. It was time to get all the clocks back on time.
After a power outage all the clocks return to midnight or simple go to dashes or "CL". Funny thing following a power outage. It's almost as if you're starting over. Pretty much everything needs to be reset. Life is that way. When we experience a power outage, one of those times that we forget to stay plugged into God, we definitely start over. We start first with restoring the power in our lives. We get plugged back into God. It's what the apostle Paul was talking about as he closed his letter to the Ephesians.
"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:10-12 It's time to get plugged back into the power source, get the Light back on in our lives and, "having done all, to stand." Ephesians 6:13