This past week will be one not soon forgotten.  I write this entry from a hotel room on my wife’s birthday.

            It is often times during our trials and in the midst of our circumstances that our true character is shown and who we put our faith in is revealed.  Saturday night, in a severe thunderstorm outbreak, our house was struck by lightning and became supercharged.  Fortunately, we were home as strange as that sounds.  If we had not been, the whole house would have flooded and possibly burned to the ground.  When the house was struck, all of the copper water pipes blew inside the walls and the cable/electrical box was blown off the wall.  The strike was so intense that when it hit our chimney, pieces were thrown hundreds of feet in all directions.

I tell these specifics, not to gain pity, but to demonstrate the power of God.  When lightning strikes something, so much power enters the object that is struck that the power can’t all be absorbed. The site of the strike tries to convert the power into heat, but can’t; the result is an explosion.  One bolt of lightning contains 100,000,000 volts, enough to power 10 million homes for one month and can create heat along its path of up to 60,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 3 times the temperature of the sun.  Where others might have only seen disaster and destruction; I saw God’s greatness.  He not only has the power to create lightning; He has and He used that power to stop that bolt of lightning from traveling another 20 feet and potentially killing me.  As people hear me tell this sequence of events they generally say, “You are so lucky.”  My response to them is always, “I’m not lucky; I am blessed!”  This was a God moment.

Father, I pray you use me to advance your kingdom and I continue to pray for your protection over me and my family.  I plead your precious blood over us and I come against any plan the enemy might have had in this.  I pray that anything he might have meant for my harm that You will use it for my good.  I thank You for your protection and I trust in You because You are the God who sees me and You are the God who loved me enough to send Your Son to die on the cross for me.  I pray all these things in Jesus’ name, the strong Son of God.  Amen.