The Plumbline

Has anyone or anything been disturbing your peace lately? If you watch the evening news, there are reports of mass shootings, angry confrontations between this group or that, natural disasters sweeping away those in their path, homes destroyed by fires, and families torn apart by things way beyond their control. Indeed, there are a plethora of things that can disturb our peace in a matter of seconds, but we don't have to allow our peace to be destroyed by any of these things or people. God's peace is capable of surpassing whatever seeks to disturb it. The way peace is maintained is also the way it is attained - we place our trust in the One True God. You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock. (Isaiah 26:3-4) What are 'fixed thoughts'? If you are like me, your mind can ramble right along from one thought to the next without taking a breather at all. We can get

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. (Philippians 4:6-7) When we are presented with alternatives, we are being given a choice. If you have ever gone into a restaurant with pages and pages of menu items, bound together in a spiral bound book of sorts, you probably have been so frustrated by all the choices you just chose your old "stand by" because you couldn't read through them all before the waitress returned! When the choices are many, the anxiety associated with making the "right" choice is significantly higher than when the choices are simply this or that. At least we stand a 50/50 chance of getting our choice right with the latter example, but with the spiral-

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. (John Lubbock) Lubbock also reminds us that a day of worry is worse than a week of work! We spend a great deal of time 'working on things', only to rework them a little later. We clean today, but by next week this time, the cleaning must be repeated. Why? Life happened and dirt came. As with our living environment, life happens and dirt comes into our lives in the areas of our emotions, thoughts, and even our relationships. We must constantly be aware that life will 'happen', but when we have prepared for it, we are able to face the challenge of the 'dirt' as it arises. I have extra cleaning products in the house - not just enough to keep it clean today. One way we are always ready to deal with 'life's dirt' as it comes is to be 'rested', f