A Refrigerator That Needed to Be Plugged In

LET’S say that you go to Sears, and you are looking for a refrigerator. You go to the appliance section and you see the one you want. It is top of the line. We’re talking ten thousand dollars.

This is a serious refrigerator. You open the door, and the trays slide out automatically. This refrigerator has some serious features. You decide to buy it.

They are going to deliver it in a few hours, so you go home to be there for the delivery. On your way home, you stop by the supermarket and you load up, because you want to fill the refrigerator with your goods and items. They pull up, and they bring your refrigerator in and put it in place. You load it down with all the goodies that you’ve picked up from the store, and feel really good about what you have in your home.

When you wake up the next day, and go to the refrigerator for breakfast, you discover something that is very heart-wrenching. The milk has turned, the ice cream has run all over the floor, and the vegetables are beginning to change colors. It becomes evident to you that this thing does not work —that all of this investment has been for naught, and you are ticked off. You pick up the telephone and call Sears to give them a piece of your Christian mind.

You get the proprietor on the phone who sold you the refrigerator and you say, “Sir, I bought this refrigerator for ten thousand dollars, and it does not work.” The proprietor apologizes to you, and says, “Listen, do me a favor. Go put your ear to the bottom of the refrigerator and see if you hear the low hum of the motor.” You say, “Hold the line.”

You go; you put your ear there, but nothing. He says, “Pull the freezer door open and see if that light comes on.” You say, “Hold the line.” You go and you open it and nothing.

He then says, “There is a cord at the back of your refrigerator. Would you tell me whether it has been plugged in?” You go and you look in the back of the refrigerator, and lo and behold, it’s not been plugged in. You come back to the phone, and you say, “I have looked and I saw the cord, and it was not plugged in, but for ten thousand dollars it shouldn’t have to be.

For ten thousand dollars this thing ought to work on general principle.” The proprietor then explains to you that this expensive, brand-new refrigerator has all the manufactured specifications to do and to be all it was designed to do and be, but not without power.

It’s got parts, but the parts can’t work without power. Just having the parts, as expensive and precious as they are, won’t allow the parts to do what the parts were designed to do, unless it is connected to power.