Last week, many Northern Californians (some of our friends included) woke up with no power. A total of 800,000 customers were expected to be affected. The utility company, in the face of a strong wind event that could trigger wildfires, decided to simply shut the power off to those in threatened areas. It didn’t want a repeat of the recent years where fires ignited by defective electric power and distribution lines, conductors and the failure of power poles caused massive devastation and loss of many lives.
800,000 customers, several million people, without power because it was intentionally shutoff by the largest power company in the nation. I guess it thought that it was easier to control the “symptoms” than to fix the “source” of the problem … defective distribution lines, conductors and aging power poles, etc.
I know we need to take care of “symptoms” as they arise, but that does nothing for alleviating the “source” of the problems. Unfortunately, man is very good at focusing on “symptoms,” rather than “sources.” Not only do we do that with the problems of this world, we do that with the problems of our souls.
God reminded Jeremiah that the heart of man is “deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” [17:9]
God promised Ezekiel that He would remove hearts of stone and replace them with “hearts of flesh.” [11:19]
Jesus declared that the way to the Father to receive that new (tender) heart is through Him alone. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” [John 14:6]
This process of redeeming the heart, of going to the source of our ills, is all of God through His wonderful grace. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast.” [Eph 2:8-10]
Maybe power companies can simply deal with symptoms, but man’s inner problems must be dealt with at the source – his very own heart. And only God’s grace can do that.
