A Perspective of Power

Firstly I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to everyone who took part in the Geordie Night on Wednesday. From all accounts it was a fantastic evening. I would like to thank all those who attended and gave money. As Francis of Assisi said, "for it is in givng that we receive".

Thanks a lot.

Oscar Wilde once wrote, "In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it." This is evident if you look at the story of Solomon. In 1 Kings 8:23, Solomon prays a prayer of complete dedication to God, but after getting every materialistic thing he wanted, he started to depend less on God and more on the props around him.

This week we had a massive power cut. It happened on Monday night and we didn't regain power until wednesday night. In that time, everything went down. Phones, laptops, ovens, lights and T.V's. And all the time I sat there by torchlight praying that the power would come back. Everytime I prayed, it didn't come back, time and time again, it stayed dark. Then wednesday night came and the lights came back on.
At first I thought it was brilliant, but then with the lights came everything else. For that brief spell of 2 nights without power, I read my bible more, I prayed, I had time with God to think and work out what I needed to do, and it was brilliant. With no films or programmes to distract me, God became my number 1 choice again instead of Bad Boys 2 or The Matrix. It was in this quiet time that I read the story of Solomon and it felt like a mirror image. Obviously I'm not a king and I don't have hoards of cedar and pine and gold like he did, but I had begun to put material things ahead of God and began to depend on them. Comfort came before commitment.
During the time of the power cut, the kids aswell as myself had a lot of time to read, play with one another and play outside, something that in the long run I believe is more beneficial for them than watching videos in creche or at home.
Work was hard without the power with alot of the hard yards being done by hand rather than by machine, again possibly a blessing in disguise? God blessed the land with rainfall again, not only in the storm that caused the power cut but also regularly in the evenings, maybe just a reminder to us all of who is in charge and who calls the shots around here. This week we also had a visit from an American team, who are friends of Robin Nash the Creche teacher. There were 7 of them and they worked so hard sifting sand for sand pits and painting planks. To me it seemed that, they, like the power cut were a blessing. We couldn't do any machine work so God provided us with enough man power to get the job done nevertheless.

As I mentioned the power returned in time for work on thursday and friday, however the rain did not cease meaning that the work done this week had been kept to a minimum. Was this just purely a coincidence or was it a sign? Could God have meant for the power cut, to bring us out of our ways of materialistic dependency? Was the rain a way of God demonstrating who we should put at the centre of everything? When the Lord appeared to Solomon he said that because "they have embraced other gods...the Lord brought all this disaster on them." Let us not put other things before God. If the power dies, so what? We have the main power source with us all the time. If my laptop runs out of battery, so what? It allows me to spend more time with God.
To answer a question I posed before, "Could God have meant for the power cut, to bring us out of our ways of materialistic dependency?" I have reason to believe the answer to be "yes". Having asked on Wednesday night how all the farms surrounding Rehoboth would cope without power, I was told that everyone else had electricity. The lightning had struck only Rehoboth's circuit box, meaning we were the only ones without power. To me this is more than coinicidence. However I will let you draw your own conclusions.

Until Next Week.

Rob.