The Plumbline

If you stop listening to instruction, my child, you will turn your back on knowledge. (Proverbs 19:27) Plato told us that human behavior had one of three sources: desire, emotion, or knowledge. The desires of one's heart stem from a whole lot of different influences including things we have been taught, some biological factors, and more than a little bit of emotional influence. Emotion carries us much more than we'd like to admit, making us choose things that otherwise we might not just because it felt right at the moment. Knowledge is probably the easiest influence to "control" when it comes to behavior. The things we learn over the course of our lives aren't the primary influence over our behavior, but it can be a very powerful influence, nonetheless. If we learn that a hot surface is hot when touched, leading to a very unpleasant burn on our skin, we are less likely to touch that hot surface again down the road. Yet, we touch hot surfaces throughout our lifetim...

Zig Zigler said, "If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time", and I cannot agree more. The 'aim' we take in life determines the course we will follow. If we aim to please people, we will find ourselves constantly changing what we do, how we do it, when it is done, and so on. If we aim to please ourselves all the time, we will find the more we try to please ourselves, the less likely we are to be pleased - we will always want more. The more we aim at pleasing God, the less we will seek the approval of others and the more we will seek his will to be done in our lives. How is it we 'seek God' above all other ambitions, desires, or impressions this world gives us? I think it begins when we determine we want his will over the will of others, and especially over our own will. Sinful behaviors manifest when we 'dabble' with sin's tug even a little bit. The more we resist the 'tiny tugs' of sin, the more we will resist the bigger ones tha...

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. (I Corinthians 2:9-12) What can you imagine with your mind's eye? Is it something grand and glorious, or are those imaginations limited by what you perceive to be your 'talents', 'abilities', or 'treasures'? We sometimes 'dream big', but when it comes to actually believing in what we see with our mind's eye, we discount the possibility of it ever coming to pass. It isn't that we are to 'dream' things into existence, but when God plants a vision within...

John's gospel records a wedding celebration attended by Jesus, his mother, and a few of his early disciples. You may know the story, but as the celebration went on, the wine ran out. In those days, the host of the celebration would have been devastated to realize they had 'under-planned' for such an event. Weddings were a big deal, with most likely the majority of the community celebrating such an event. So, how did the host 'run out' of wine? We don't know the 'why', but we know he would have suffered great embarrassment if such a thing had of been known to those in attendance. I wonder how many times we have been saved from 'great embarrassment' when our 'wine jugs' ran dry because of our 'under-planning'? Standing nearby were six stone water jars...each could hold twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” When the jars had been filled, he said, “Now dip some out, and take it to the master o...