Wednesday, November 12, 2014

The Importance of a Power Supply

Last week one of the computers in the middle school computer lab stopped working. It would not even turn on. Push the button... nothing. Push it again, harder... nothing. There were a couple of small lights on inside, so I knew that somehow electricity was getting to the computer, but nothing was running, no hard drive spinning merrily, no fans whirring, nothing on the screen, no output.  I lugged it back to my office and, just yesterday, opened it up to see what the problem was. Troubleshooting is always interesting.  A colleague and I began taking things out, unplugging components, and checking to see if there was a short somewhere. Bottom line? A bad power supply, in fact, a dead power supply. We did not have on hand the exact power supply it needed, so we improvised, jerry rigged, "MacGyvered" a solution. A smaller power supply with the right wattage got that computer up and running again. It may not look particularly elegant, but it works.  A computer is only as good as its power supply.


And that got me thinking about my power supply. As a believer in Jesus, I need power to get up and running each day, to live my life for the Lord. That power only comes from God, as a gift. He is the one who needs to troubleshoot my life and point out the connections that are not working. He has given me prayer as a way to connect to Him, as my power supply. Even if my prayers are small and may not be elegant, the power He gives through prayer is much bigger than I can imagine, and it is all that I need.