“Juice”

"For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power" (1Corinthians 4:20).

When I was a youngster we lived for a time in a house my father built on a wooded hill overlooking a small meadow. Our well and water system was located on the edge of the meadow. A small pump house stood over the well, housing a jet pump driven by a 220 volts electric motor.

It was a long push up the hill and on occasion the motor overheated and blew the fuse. I often accompanied my father as he trudged down the hill to replace it.

The fuse was a cylinder about three inches long with copper electrodes on each end, designed to slide into clips. My father would pry out the old fuse with a large screwdriver and replace it with a new one. "Lots of juice there," he said more than once, pointing his screwdriver at the fuse box. 

On one occasion, when my father was away, the fuse blew, and I, wanting to show my mother how grown-up I had become, slipped off without telling her, to replace the fuse on my own.I inserted the screwdriver into fuse box, as I had seen my father do many times and…

That's all I remember. When I came to a few minutes later I was lying flat on my back, several feet from the pump house, tingling from head to toe, holding a screwdriver in my hand that was bent in the shape of an inverted U. I learned about “juice” that day.

I've since learned of a greater “juice,” the infinite power of God, unseen but always available, activated by prayer.

I think of certain intractable folks—a colleague, a parishioner, an elder, an adolescent daughter or son. Some problems can be worked out with words; some cannot.  There's nothing left to say...

But, we can pray. Lots of “juice” there!

David Roper

6/21/16