"Don't let Satan snuff (YOU) out..."

As you probably know, each and every week I will help clean our church. I'll end up spending most of the day there, emptying trash, vacuuming rugs, washing windows, or a host of other things!

A couple weeks ago, I was almost done with my work at the church for that day. Just a few more windows remained to be cleaned, and then I could get onto the final little jobs! I was up at the far end of our church, by the Youth Room. Our church's technical director, Dean, was also up in that same far end of our church, working out some bugs in the Youth Room's internet connection.

As I'm washing my last few windows, Dean comes out to me and asks if I wanted to watch a really quick music video on YouTube! Evidently the Internet was working, but Dean was playing a video just to make sure that it was.

"Sure!" I replied.

And then--


The electricity went off!

Now, you must understand a few things. Starting with the tornadoes of this past spring, there have actually been quite a few weather-related power outages, sometimes for several hours! So when the electricity went off at the church, my heart sunk, but more than that I was thinking, Okay, how long is it going to be off? What do we need to do? Emergency lights illuminated the hall, showing a clear path to the exits. I could use that light for some of my work, but how long would those lights last? And not all of my remaining work was in the lighted hall. Some of it was in the now-no-lights bathrooms!

That all happened in the first millisecond. In the second, I thought, There's no thunderstorm going on right now! The power shouldn't have gone out now, due to weather problems! Sure, it had rained a little bit that morning, but this was the afternoon. There were clouds in the sky, but certainly no severe weather storm was being dumped on us the moment the church's power went out.

Well, power or not, Dean and I came inside the church. What I thought was funny was that the video, which was partially downloaded, was still playing! I was just starting to think about how long the power would be out this time (recent our home electricity was out for nine hours!!) when the electricity promptly came back on. So who knows what the cause of the outage was! I was just glad that the power was back on.

Dean remarked, "Well, that's not the best way for my projector to be shut off!" He had been showing the music video on the projector before the power outage.

This whole experience has got me to thinking. In the spiritual sense, we are all God's "projectors". He wants us to "project" and spread His wonderful love, joy, and peace! But sometimes, Satan tries to get a "power outage" on us. Then, to his delight, we are robbed of God's wonderful power, and we can't project God's love, joy, and peace anymore.

But we don't have to be vulnerable to these "outages" if we don't want to. If we stay close to God, and let Him lead in our lives, God will make sure that the power for us to "project" for Him is never turned off!! It reminds me of a favorite children's song, which I've (slightly) modified:

"Don't let Satan snuff (YOU) out,
I'm gonna let it shine!

"Don't let Satan snuff (YOU) out,
I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!

The song is talking about how we will not let our lights, our witness, for God be snuffed out.

How about you? Will you be a "projector" of God's love, joy, and peace? Oh, and don't worry about Satan's "power outages". If you ask Him, God will cover you in his awesome "protection plan"!!