People generally agree that the statement ‘our transformer don blow’ is one of the most traumatic statements to a typical Nigerian, almost in the range of ‘person don die’. The electrical transformer steps down high voltage electricity and makes it safe to use in the home and factories. Unfortunately, due to several endemic issues, power supply is epileptic and the response time to issues in the electrical grid is abysmal in many places. It is so bad that when there is a problem, users will contribute to solving the problem. In some places, it sometimes takes Electricity Officials weeks or months to respond to issues or even more time to fix problems in the grid leaving households and businesses without light – as we generally refer to electricity, for ‘eons’.
I live in an area where the infrastructure is good and the response time is within hours; sometimes minutes! So it was with trepidation that the recent outage we had become protracted. It lasted for close to 72 hours.
The Electricity engineers couldn’t trace the fault for over 2 days when the outage occurred because the cables are underground and the fact that they didn’t have the right equipment to detect the faults. So they resorted to guessing where the fault may be. They excavated the ground at various points along the line to check. It was much later that knowledgeable people in the Estate accousted them that they admitted that their Underground Cable Detector Machine was bad. The machine is used to detect live and voltage-free electrical wires as well as identify short circuits & without it, the Engineers were ‘flying blind’.
On the 3rd day of the outage, they were able to get a machine to use. The Engineers walked along the line with the Device as it buzzed. Within minutes they were able to detect the point in the line that has the fault. The sight of the burnt cable when they excavated the point the machine buzzed proved that the machine accurately pinpointed the fault. It was shouts of joy a few minutes later as the team completed their work & power was restored.
As I watched the whole thing unfold, I couldn’t help but contemplate how all this is like life itself. In our heart and mind are buried all our life force. Sometimes, we lose connection to our creator because of faults we allow to cause a breach deep down in our hearts. When it is actions we may easily pick them up but when it is our thoughts, buried deep in the underground of our soul, then it becomes difficult to detect. That is where the Bible, man’s underground Cable Detector comes to play.
Hebrews 4:12 says ‘for the word of God is alive and exerts power and is sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of joints from the marrow, and is able to discern thoughts and intentions of the heart’.
One surprising thing I found out too was that this device is not costly. There is a model for less than $25 that I found on Amazon. So too is God’s word! It is readily available everywhere you look. It beckons on you to stoop & drink from the well of God’s wisdom.
May your Bible-trained conscience act like the underground cable detector in flagging the defect of our inborn desires buried deep in the ground of our heart and may we continually be connected to the greatest source of light and life – Psalms 36:9.
#NuggetsFromTheScriptures