The Plumbline

Harmony makes small things grow, lack of it makes great things decay. (Sallust) A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. (James 3:3-6) Harmony is probably one of the most difficult things for humans to achieve. Why is that? It could just be this propensity we have to always seek our own 'best interest' in life, or our insane desire to always be out ahead of each other in one way or another. Harmony can be disturbed when competition becomes the focus. ...

Christmas is fast approaching and many will make the season all about the gifts they have to amass for the family and friends on their lists. Others will focus on the elaborate decorations and colorful lights. Some will find 'alternative' ways to have those 'ugly sweater' parties - perhaps even an 'ugly face mask' party this year in light of the pandemic. Right there in the midst of all the shopping, list checking, celebrations, and decorations, there can emerge this desire to 'keep up' with someone else. The desire to not be 'outdone' by the neighbors in the display of decorations and lights can drive some to place life and limb at risk as they climb ladders, shimmy up trees, and cross dangerously steep rooftops. The endless hours hunting for 'just the right gift' can wear the best shoppers out - even when they are shopping online this year! Whenever we try to 'keep up' or 'one up' somebody, our motives turn from celebrat...

Capacity is determined by what is attempting to enter the vessel and the vessel's "space" to hold what is entering. For example, if we have a used jar of peanut butter that has not been scraped clean and washed out, there are remnants of peanut butter in there. For all intents and purposes, we'd say the peanut butter jar was empty - we can easily cast it away as no longer of use to us. No matter how much we attempt to fill that "empty" jar with something else (like jam), that jar would never be totally full of the jam because it still was partially filled with the peanut butter. It may not be much peanut butter, but it still affects the taste of the jam and it takes up space that the jam would like to have enjoyed. Christ is kind of like the jam in our lives - wanting to fill the empty spaces of our lives, but he is competing with the peanut butter - remnants of our old ways of doing things, responding to things, and things we have held onto that we just don...

Do you remember the saying, "Anything you can do, I can do better"?  It was from a song written by Irving Berlin for a Broadway musical, "Annie, Get Your Gun".  The point of the song was the "pitting" of the male actor against the female actress in constant competition to "one up" the other in increasingly difficult tasks - ranging from safe-cracking to living on meager supplies.  It was comedy at its finest - two sharpshooters challenging each other to hit various targets - trying to prove who really was best.  We are kind of competitive in nature, aren't we?  In fact, I wonder how many times we think we can "out-do" God? God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.  (Ephesians 3:20 The Message) The scripture is quite plain - God can do ANYTHING!  Even more than ...