Encouragement

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Luke 17.6 "And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea and it should obey you."

During a period of unemployment, money was scarce. It was summer in south Georgia and was hot as blazes. The air conditioner in that old trailer where we lived was humming away, straining to keep some cool air in that hot box. I've seen the temperature inside the trailer soar to over 120 degrees when the air conditioner was not running. Despite the cost of electricity, I continued to run it. I knew my electric bill would be high yet I had faith that God would make a way, somehow, someway. I had prayed.

Well, the money for the electric bill never showed up and as I watched the Georgia Power man drive up, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I could do without electricity but I was a single parent with three children. How would my children take a bath? How could I keep food without a refrigerator? All kinds of thoughts ran through my mind on how to cope with this additional trial.

As the man cut off the source of electricity on the electric pole, my faith almost completely disappeared. The children were upset and the devil whispered, "You are a bum, look at you, God didn't help you...he's disappeared. You are on your own. You sure are a failure!"

Yet, I still remembered my prayer and I still had a small hope that God would work in my behalf. Not even thinking straight, I took two slices of bread and popped them in the toaster. In a couple of minutes, they popped up, crisply toasted. Imagine my surprise! My heart soared as I opened the refrigerator and the light came on. I rushed throughout that little trailer turning on switches. Some worked, some didn't.

What the Lord had allowed to be left on was the refrigerator, four receptacles, and the hot water heater. I had a gas stove so we could still cook.

A couple of weeks later, the money arrived to catch up the bill. When the Georgia Power man came to cut the meter back on, I met him, and said, "I've got to be honest with you, for two weeks we have had some electricity. You need to read the meter as I owe you for this electricity." He looked at me in disbelief and said, "That's impossible. I pulled this meter and inserted plastic strips so no contact with the electric source could be made." I replied, "You better look again." He looked closely at the plastic strips and noticed two tiny pinholes. This allowed enough contact to provide the essential electricity we needed to get by. He looked at me and with a grin said, "The Lord was looking after you. There's barely enough reading on the meter to report. You won't owe any extra." As he drove away, the story of the mustard seed came to my mind. Yes, God can and did make a way!

A couple of years later, sitting on the back porch of the bigger place the Lord gave me, I observed a storm approaching. It began to rain as the thunder roared, and the lightning struck. I always liked to watch this fantastic display. It reminds me of God's power and majesty. A display like this was far more spectacular than any fireworks show I've ever seen. Suddenly, I heard a boom like the roar of a bomb exploding. It was loud and near. A split second later, my porch shook as a great ball of lightning the size of a pickup truck hit a pecan tree about 100 yards away! It was intensely blue like the flame of a propane burner. Needless to say, that 70 plus year old tree was fried. Within days, the leaves began to turn brown and fall off, and within a few weeks, dead branches were falling.

As I saw this, I thought on that time those two tiny holes on the plastic strips allowed enough contact to continue to provide electricity and how the great ball of lightning represented just a small portion of the power of my God.

Job 38.35 "Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?"

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