A Shocking Discovery

Learning I’d made a mistake came as quite a shock, but I think I learned something from it.

It’s not every day that you have the opportunity to find out what it’s like to complete a 120-volt circuit with your body—unless you’re in my line of work.

“It might be on”

Let me start at the beginning. My boss owns his own business, and for the past few weeks he’s been (patiently) teaching me the ins-and-outs of electrical work. During one of our jobs, he had me wiring a floodlight on a newly constructed house, warning me before I started that it might be on. “It might be on,” he said.

Safely insulated by my fiberglass ladder, I went to work. First, I cut open the Romex sheath. Next, I carefully separated the hot, neutral and ground wires to keep from blowing anything up. After that, I started stripping out the tip of the hot wire. Then, I turned around to gripe at whoever had the nerve to sneak behind and tickle me while I was working on what might be a live wire. When I didn’t see anyone there, it dawned on me like a sunrise on Pluto that I must have sent electricity through my body.

Later, my boss told me that my hand must have brushed the grounding wire while I was stripping out the hot wire. It was hard to believe at first. I was absolutely, 100-percent sure that I had been doing everything right, but the facts were hard to argue with. Either I’d sent electricity through myself or someone had given me an aggressive massage in the upper back region and then vanished.

Seeing spiritual parallels

I’m not sure if it’s normal to start seeing spiritual parallels after sending an unnatural amount of electrical current through your body, but I can’t help but think about a couple verses in Proverbs that say, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25).

What I was doing on the ladder seemed right. I believed I was doing everything the right way—and yet, that didn’t stop me from getting shocked.

It’s the same way in life. It doesn’t matter how strongly you or I believe we’re doing something right; unless we’re actually doing it right, we aren’t necessarily protected from the consequences. For instance, explaining to a police officer that you didn’t know the speed limit was 30 miles per hour slower than what you were driving probably won’t get you out of a ticket.

Likewise, I didn’t have the opportunity to sit down with the circuit and explain that I didn’t want to be an electrical conductor. None of my confidence shielded me from the consequence of one unintentional hand movement.

Reading God’s mind

In our walk with God, is it okay if we follow most of His commands? Will He be pleased with us as living sacrifices if we spend our lives pursuing what seems right to us?

God Himself had His answer to that question recorded in the book of Isaiah: “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

God is not interested in what we think is the right way to do something. He’s interested in what is the right way to do something—the way He’s preserved for us in His Word, the Bible. At its core, the Bible is an instruction manual contrasting two major paths in life: the harm and unhappiness that come from poor decisions and the blessings and joy that come from wise ones.

Choose the right route

At times, it can be tempting to take the route that seems right to us—but it’s a route that inevitably leads to death (and sometimes electrical shocks along the way). Following God, on the other hand, gives us a pathway that helps us avoid and survive life’s dangers and points us toward its joys.

As King David, a man after God’s own heart, once wrote, “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Oh, fear the LORD, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him” (Psalm 34:8-9).

Which path will you take?

Jeremy Lallier is a member of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, living in Virginia.