“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses …” Acts 1:8
Well, this year’s celebration of the Jewish Feast of Trumpets has come and gone and, much to my disappointment, we are still here. I will continue to rest in God’s perfect love, knowing His timing is perfect; Jesus will come when the time is exactly right-not a micro-second early and not a micro-second late. So, still waiting with anticipation for His return, I will get back to work, “redeeming the time” until His return.
I say, “get back to work,” meaning writing this newsletter, because I have been working on other tasks since, as I rationalized in my great hope that we Christians would not be here on earth after Rosh Hashanah, we would not be in need of another newsletter. And, of course, Hurricane Ike created a lot of extra work for us this month.
I am sure there have been many sermons preached comparing hurricanes and other natural disasters to the physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual “storms” that human beings face regularly in this life. During this most recent hurricane and shortly afterward, God showed me many parallels, assuring me of His love and ability to keep me protected, provided for, and comforted as the storm raged around me.
In many of the sermons and Bible study lessons Bro. June presents, he quotes Ephesians 5:20 about always giving thanks to God for all things. If we are walking by faith: believing God, believing that He knows best, and choosing to do what He, in Scripture tells us to-including making the choice to be thankful for everything, things may not change dramatically, but our focus changes. Though we may not be able to physically see God working in our circumstance, we are enabled to face hardships with patience, endurance, and hope. That allows others to see Jesus in us and draws them to Him.
On Saturday morning, during this most recent hurricane, we lost electric power. (We were in Livingston at the time.) Mayor Evans came by on Sunday afternoon, as he made rounds of hospitals, nursing homes, etc., to see if we were okay and to see if we had any special needs the city might be able to help with. At that time, his information was that the power lines between Livingston and the source of Livingston’s power in Beaumont were so devastated that it might be three weeks before those could be repaired and able to transmit power once again. We were very thankful that we had a couple of generators (purchased after Hurricane Rita three years ago) and that we had bought a third generator for the Nacogdoches mission just three weeks prior to “Ike.” (All three of our missions lost power but in Nacogdoches and Lufkin the power was off less than 24 hours. Even so, the generators there were utilized to keep the refrigerators and freezers running so no food was lost.) Prior to Ike’s landfall, we had sent Jeremiah (our son who works mostly at the Livingston mission) to the Nacogdoches mission to help Royce with whatever might arise during the storm. When he returned to Livingston late Monday, he brought the Nacogdoches generator here and we used it at our office to operate our computers. Another of our sons, Josiah, and his wife Michelle, live near the Livingston mission. (If you recall, she works here in the office with Pegi-June’s sister, and me.) Anyway, Josiah and Michelle have a small freezer which they put on a dolly, wheeled over to our house, and plugged into “our” generator.
In all, we were without power 4-1/2 days. (Our daughter in Houston was without power for 11 days.) We had fences blown down, limbs twisted out of trees and whole trees broken in half and/or uprooted, a gas line cracked by the swaying of the tree growing over it (the gas line was entangled in the tree’s roots and as they were being torn “out of socket” the gas line could not withstand the pressure), the unsecured awning of the RV (we occasionally use for overflow housing) flew off and the window it was supposed to protect was broken, and there was much debris everywhere. Our flashlights really got a good workout during the power outage. Early each morning (we get up at 5:30 a.m.) as I read my Bible in the beam of the flashlight, I would hear the trucks of the linemen rumble by, going to and coming from breakfast served for them at Camp Cho-Yeh, down the road from us, and I would thank God for them and pray for their safety and strength for the task.
When our power was restored I immediately felt the urge to give a big hug to the first lineman I could find. How I thank God that these men, (including our Livingston Thursday-night Bible study teacher, Bo Richardson) who tirelessly work long hours, going without proper rest, away from their families, and facing danger, are willing to endure and do the job required of them.
As Christians, we possess the immense power of God in these earthen vessels. If we lose faith and do not obey the commands of God’s Word during the “storms” of life, we block the flow of that power and fail to be the reflected light of Jesus Christ, the light of this world. Those who do not know Christ are in darkness and because they generally do not know they are lost and in the dark, their darkness is great indeed. We must be faithful to the job we are called to do, as those linemen have been faithful to their job of doing whatever was necessary to restore power and light to storm victims. The time is short and the fields are ready to be harvested but the laborers are few. Let’s not “sit at home” enjoying the “power” and “light” we have, not caring about those still in the darkness.
I cannot imagine standing before the One Who “loved us while we were yet sinners” and Who laid down His life to rescue us from darkness and death, trying to explain why we did not love Him enough to obey His instruction to “go” and tell.
Bro. June & Nancy