Camping with CHRIST

LIGHTS OUT

11:58pm September 8, 2011

The power goes out for a few hours and the city is all in a stir.  Yet all are fairly  comfortable with roofs over their heads and plenty of extra batteries for their flashlights.  I sit here and think of the countless people in the world that aren’t so lucky.  Sporadic power outages happen daily in some places like India, Pakistan & many other Asian countries, as well as countless countries in South American… I mean I could even be typing this on my battery powered laptop right now, but I do prefer this candle lit journal instead.

I think of Jesus in this moment and simply how the reality of no power affected His ministry.  The rhythm of the days.  Oil lit lamps at night as He told stories around the camp fire next to the Galilee.  Oh what a beautiful sight: CAMPING with CHRIST.

I wonder if the disciples ever had to much wine on any of those nights?!  Candle lit nights.  No microphone sermons or electric guitars — they must have had some epic acoustic worship services.  Praying and singing the Psalms of David.

Oh a world without power.
I kind of like it.  It forces people to slow down a bit.  To go outside and talk to the neighbors.  I don’t mind it.  I had been spending to much time on facebook lately anyway.

Oh JESUS, give us GRACE in our busy worlds we create.  Meet us in the still moments where the lights are out and we remember to simply breath.

context: On Thursday September 8, 2011 there was a power outage in Southern California that began around 3:30pm.  It spread from Arizona to San Diego affecting some 5 million people.  People were affected as far south as Tijuana, Mexico and as for north as Orange County.  Power began to return to some areas at about 10:30pm.  When I wrote this in my journal at midnight the power was still off at my parents place.  I believe it returned at about 2:30am.  Not a common occurrence in this comfortable Southern California city.