Practicing Faith: Problems? Did you check your GFIC?

The air was pretty heavy in our basement. “I think we need a new dehumidifier,” I said to my wife. I started worrying about the books I brought home from church. I didn’t want them to get ruined in the humidity. “I noticed it wasn’t working a while ago,” my wife said. She was right. The truth is that I tried to fix it. I pushed the “on” switch, emptied the bucket and even tried plugging it into another outlet.

As a matter of fact, I had pushed the “on” button at least 50 times over the last few months. Every time I went by it, I bent over and did it again. It was as if pushing the button one more time would make something happen. It was a perfect example of the definition of insanity. That didn’t stop me. My brain kept telling me that our dehumidifier wasn’t that old. I just had to believe it could be resurrected.

We finally decided to purchase a new unit. I was so excited when it arrived. You’d have thought I was 5 years old again and it was Christmas morning. Away to the door I flew like a flash, tore open the screen and ripped open the package. I couldn’t wait to get it downstairs and plug it in. I was in such a hurry that I almost fell while going down the stairs.

I moved the old dehumidifier out of the way and plugged in the new one. I was expecting to hear the hum of the motor kicking in. Instead, I was met with silence. Nothing happened. It didn’t make sense. You are probably wondering what I did next? You guessed it. I unplugged it and plugged it in again. I pushed the button two or three times, all to no avail. Throwing up my hands, I walked away.

Confounded by the dilemma. I kept wondering why the new machine didn’t work. As I headed upstairs to get the owner’s manual, a thought occurred to me. I came back down and looked at the outlets along the back wall of the basement. The first outlet on the line had a ground fault circuit interrupter. I reached down to push the tiny button in the receptacle.

Suddenly the buzz of the dehumidifier’s motor filled the air. The mystery had been solved. The GFCI, which is designed to protect people from fatal shocks and reduce the risk of electrical fires by interrupting the flow of electrical current, must have been tripped by some event. I remember my friend telling me that the GFCI was there to save you from doing something foolish. It struck me that it is like our conscience.

From the time we are very young, we seem to know right from wrong. Rev. Billy Graham used to say that God put it there so we’d know in our hearts when we did wrong. A working conscience will keep us from making mistakes. It will keep us up and running. The problem is that sin gets in the way. It dulls our senses and suppresses our internal warning system. If we stray too far, everything stops working.

The only way to ensure the good life is to keep your eyes on Jesus. We need to make sure nothing interrupts our power supply. If your GFIC (God Focused Internal Circuitry) isn’t working properly, then come back to church and get plugged in to worship. If you do that, I will guarantee that you will be humming along before long and nothing will stop you from getting all that God has planned for you.

The Rev. Cal Lord is pastor of Central Baptist Church in Westerly.

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