Sharing the Power

Last night, we attended a wedding - amazing, beautiful, and a bit fearful with Hurricane Irene barreling down upon us. During the evening, Tony texted his cousin who lives a block away from the event: 

"How about us and 50 of our closest friends spending the night by you ;D LOL" 

To which cousin Dean graciously replied, "NO problem. Come on over." 

Well, we and our friends braved it home in the downpour, arriving safe and sound. The next morning, checking facebook, I saw Dean's post: 


"Anyone have a generator I can use? Powers been out since 3AM. Basement is a pond, I saw a Carp down there... NJ has been sold out of generators for a week."

He had no power and a flooded basement. We had plenty of power, a dry basement, AND a working generator. So Dean came over to our place and borrowed the generator to pump out his basement. 

You might say - he shared our power. 

Kinda like how the Lord shares His power with us…

And how we can share His power with others.

 

The LORD said to Moses: "... I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone." Numbers 11:17

When the Israelites' grumbling caused Moses to cry out to God, "I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me" (v. 14), God ordered Moses to convene 70 of Israel's elders to share Moses' burden, and to share the power of the Spirit. 

God shares His power of the Spirit with us. And when our burden is too heavy for us, He spreads the power around so that we don't have to carry the burden alone. When we let our need be known, God provides trusted friends with power to help bear that burden with us. God's power is perfected in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). And when someone we know is carrying a heavy burden, we receive power to help them bear their load. 

In taking some of the power and putting it on others, we don't lose power any more than a candle loses its light when sharing its flame with another candle. The light just increases as it's shared. Just like love. And just like the power of the Spirit. 

Later on, we heard from Dean that driving back from our place, he stopped at Home Depot for a plug --- just as a shipment of generators arrived! Planning for the future, he bought one. Once home, Dean learned his neighbor needed a generator and so he shared ours with him. Way to share the power!!