Eggs, bacon, chips

Matthew Huish
May 12, 2010

During my design and technology classes, which specialized in electronics, I was taught a clever way to remember the names of the terminals of a transistor: eggs, bacon chips. The first letter of each word represented the first letter of the terminal, eggs for "emitter", bacon for base and chips for collector. Although I'm a keen scientist, please don't ask me to explain how a transistor works -- those DT classes failed to teach me anything else, really -- but I do remember something cool about how transistors could be applied to amplify current with only a small change of voltage.

Basically, if a small change of voltage takes place at the base, then a small current can be amplified to a large current via the collector and emitter. (Maybe a person more knowledgeable in this area can explain it more elegantly.)

I recently reflected on this property as a good analogy for how God works in my life. Often God wants to create a big impact in my life, but first I have to make a small condition to allow God's grace to pour into my life.

Me on my own –> small difference

My (small) portion of resp. + God's (cosmic) portion of resp. –> BIG DIFFERENCE

Without fulfilling my portion of responsibility, God cannot bless me. When I do make that small condition, God will bless me abundantly.

A small example to illustrate my point:

Today I went out on the streets around the Lancaster Gate headquarters to do some street-witnessing. Every Wednesday at 2 pm all the headquarters staff strive to go out to do some grassroots level outreach. I enjoy it as it helps me to keep spiritually sharp and, as someone who doesn't have spiritual children, gives me an opportunity to find someone to whom I can offer True Parents' blessings.

If I'm honest, I wasn't pumped up this afternoon, feeling a little de-motivated. "I've got a lot of work to catch up on," I told myself. "Maybe I can skip the witnessing this week." But my conscience reminded me that I enjoy witnessing and that going out for only an hour would be a good thing to do. So I went out with Reamonn and Christine.

The hour itself wasn't spectacular; I spoke with a few interesting people, but failed to really connect with them. At the end of the hour, I wanted to buy a few snacks for the prayer evening that would take place later that day, so I popped into the Tesco Metro in the middle of Queensway. Having picked up a packet of Maynards Wine Gums (which are significantly better than the Tesco own brand wine gums) and McVities milk chocolate hob nobs (buy one get one free!) I walked towards the checkout.

Just as I was about to join one of the queues, I recognized an old friend examining some products on a display. I've known Abbas, a fellow UCL graduate who is currently studying to become a medic, for many years. God has somehow led us to each other on several occasions, once in 2002, again in UCL between 2005 and 2008 and now in 2010. We spoke briefly, catching up on the most important news, but importantly I was able to recover Abbas' phone number (which I had lost when I misplaced an older handset).

Walking back to 43 Lancaster Gate, I felt that God wanted me to meet Abbas again, but of course that would never have happened if I had remained at my desk in the office. All I had to do was provide the bacon; God took care of the eggs and the chips.