Who Turned Out the Lights??

Once in a while we have the luxury of knowing in advance that the power will go out when we happen to see a small notice somewhere on a back page of one of the local newspapers, nestled snugly in between a motorcycle ad and some legal bulletin. That’s when Electro-Ucayali puts it in there AND we happen to see it. Most of the time we’re just doing whatever we do—depending on electricity—comfortable in the assurance that the last time it went off and made us mad was the last time it would ever be shut off—doing whatever we do when off snaps the electricity—and we proceed to be disappointed as if we never considered that it might happen!

Last Sunday—it most often happens on a Sunday—the lights went out at 8 AM and stayed that way until nearly 6 PM. We fretted and sweated (no fans) and remarked with all kinds of impatience as if we’d never spent a day in the bush with no electricity. We actually spend about half of most months out in remote places where there has never been electric current. We dip in the river to cool off, cook over an open fire, and read at night by candle light. It’s a lifestyle we have come to love. Yet in our home in Pucallpa if we don’t have our lights, our fans, and our computers we’re suffering! How quickly we become discontent because of our expectations.

Last Tuesday evening the power was off just before dinner time. I jumped into the truck and drove five miles to buy gasoline for our small generator so we could “light up” dinner. When I got back home with the gas the lights were back on. I wanted someone to turn them back off just to make my trip and gasoline purchase count for something.

I’m studying First Peter in preparation for a leadership training event for Ashéninkas. Peter has much to say about suffering and I’m not really sure that doing without electricity qualifies. But if my perception in the moment is that I’m suffering, I still need to remember the words of Peter that put every trial into perspective.

⁶In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6-7, NIV)

The trials of our lives get much bigger still, but our expectations run high in things like electricity, water, the price of tomatoes, etc. It makes me realize I’m pretty spoiled even though I move between a primitive world and the modern world. How much our Ashéninka brothers have to suffer just to eat or get from one village to another makes my small inconveniences pale in comparison.

I need to suffer more the loss of the things I cling to. A good long day at home without my email, or my fan to keep me cool, is good for me. It keeps my spiritual dependence muscles in tone. A few more candle-lit dinners and I’ll be ready for a real trial when it comes.

Lord help me to be more concerned about the light in my heart and shining it to my neighbor than about whether my electric lights will come on.  May my light so shine before men that they see my good works and glorify my Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16).