I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.—John 15:5 (NIV)

I was living through a particularly hectic period, and the last thing I needed was the hassle of a power outage. Yet power outages have become a normal way of life in northern California. 

Because our region is prone to wildfires, the electric utility shuts down the power grid during periods of high winds. This is to reduce the risk of a falling tree limb pulling down a power line and sparking a fire. These “planned outages,” as they are called, can last for days. 

So, like many homeowners in our semi-rural community, my son and I drag out a gas generator to power most of our home during these periods. 

At the beginning of this past summer, we had an outage that was projected to last three days. Jonathan and I set up the generator, and our family went about business almost as usual. There were a few appliances we couldn’t use, like our oven and, on some days, the air conditioner. We knew our limits and grew accustomed to living with less-than-optimal power. 

On the second day of the three-day outage, I plugged in the shop vac to clean out my car. A minute later, the lights flickered and power went out. I’d overloaded the generator’s circuit. Before restarting, I decided to throw a switch to test if our main power was back on. To my surprise it was. We had been limping along on generator power when we could have been using full power and didn’t even know it! 

God whispered to me in that moment that I’d been doing the same thing. I’d been limping along on my own power, disconnected from the power of Christ. It was time to flip the switch.