The Grounding Wire

Every building with a lightning rod has a secret most people notice: the grounding wire. That thick copper cable runs from the rod on the roof straight down into the earth, buried eight feet deep in moist soil. When a bolt of lightning — three hundred million volts of raw, searing power — strikes the rod, the grounding wire channels all that destructive energy harmlessly into the ground. The building stands untouched. The lights don't even flicker.

But here is what matters: without the grounding wire, the lightning rod becomes the most dangerous object on the roof. It still attracts the strike, but with nowhere to send the energy, it explodes through the building's wiring, starting fires, frying circuits, destroying everything inside.

James tells us to submit yourselves to God and resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Notice the order. Submission comes first. It is the grounding wire. When we are rooted in the Almighty through prayer, Scripture, and daily surrender, we can absorb whatever the enemy throws at us and watch it dissipate into nothing. The temptation still comes. The strike still lands. But it finds no purchase in a life grounded in God.

Without that grounding, our attempts at resistance are just a lightning rod with no wire — all attraction, no protection. But planted deep in the Most High, we stand. And the storm moves on.