The Plumbline

I remember doing guard duty while in basic training and I almost felt like I had stretched my body to the limits.  If I thought guarding those green vehicles was all that significant, my attitude didn't manifest that!  I made my rounds - walking back and forth, carrying the M-16 over my shoulder, and freezing my fingers to the bone.  If someone had come to steal one of them, I would have given it to them by the end of the night!  I was so tired, to the point of exhaustion, that rational thought had escaped me.  When I finally got to go to bed, do you think I could sleep?  Nope!  I was so "over-tired" and my body just had a hard time shutting off.  After the experience was all over, I recognized something of deeper significance, though.  While I may not have seen the value in what I was being asked to do in guarding those vehicles from would-be intruders and rascally thieves, the base commander had a purpose in my being on-guard that night. ...

Much earlier in this ninth chapter to the Roman Church, Paul penned these words:  " Don’t suppose for a moment, though, that God’s Word has malfunctioned in some way or other." (vs. 6 MSG)  The truth be told, most of the time we are the ones who "malfunction" - not God, not his Word, not his promises.  When something is "functioning" as it was designed to function, it follows a particular order - all the pieces fit together as they should, producing the intended outcome.  Truthfully, only God can do this 100% of the time!  Try as we might, we are going to "malfunction" on occasion.  Trusting in our ability is always going to leave us with "less than" whatever it is we could attain, obtain, or maintain with God doing the work! How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually  embraced  what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading...