A few years ago our house had no windows on the south, the side where the sun shines most of the time. That made the public part of our house fairly dark. Since our garage is attached to the south side of the house, we couldn't do much about the situation as things were. So we decided to add on a sunroom to the west side of the kitchen and bring a flood of light into the house through it.
Since we had to have a lot of new wiring run to the sunroom, we thought we would add a couple outlets along the kitchen counter. The contractor warned us that if we did that, the code required us to upgrade all the kitchen outlets with a special push-button breaker system. We saw no problem with that and gave the order for him to redo the wiring in the kitchen.
For several months we were totally delighted with our new sunroom and the extra outlets in the kitchen. Then a strange thing happened. The lights and power went out in the garage. This was extremely annoying, as we now had to lift and lower the massive door to our garage by hand! I rushed immediately to the breaker box in our laundry room, fully expecting the red bar to show that the breaker to the garage had tripped. But I saw no sign of red anywhere on the breaker box. I couldn't figure out any way to get the power going to the garage again. We called in our handyman, and the problem stumped him as well.
After a couple of days I was frantic. What could be cutting off the electricity? I ransacked my mind for ideas and talked to everyone I knew about the problem. But no solution seemed in sight. On the third day I suddenly remembered the upgrade on our kitchen outlets. Could that have anything to do with the garage? It hardly seemed possible. But having tried everything else, I went into the kitchen and pushed the little breaker buttons on the kitchen outlets. Then I went to the garage and pressed the door opener. Immediately it responded! Somehow the new breakers in the kitchen were tied to the circuit in the garage.
It strikes me that being connected to Jesus is a lot like a breaker box. When I break one of His commandments, He does not permanently disconnect Himself and cast me away. By His grace I can be reset and offered a fresh start. Thanks to Him, the remnant will prove one day to be genuinely obedient to Him. In the meantime let's remember to push the button of repentance as often as necessary.
Lord, I thank You that I can be reset today for a fresh start with You. Give me the confidence to let Your power flow through me.