The Plumbline

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) If you are anything like me, you have those moments of worry or doubt that plague you from time to time. As much as you want to trust God for the outcome, you just find it hard to let go of the worry. You mull over the stuff until it is a constant nagging in your brain and your heart. A sense of God's wholeness is the furthest thing you are experiencing at that moment, but it is the one thing you long for more than anything. So, how do we go from being so overwhelmed by the circumstances of life to the place where we sense his wholeness in our lives? Maybe it comes when we are finally willing to let God know our concerns, not hol...

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. (I Peter 5:7) Anxieties and worries don't just disappear - they have to be dealt with, but it isn't always our effort that is needed to deal with them. All will probably agree that the most beneficial thing to do is to take them to God in prayer. Some will think there are going to be times when you just gotta fix things yourself. I have to challenge that this morning. There is never a time when our anxieties and worries are best dealt with in our own power. As we take them to God in prayer, there will be times when he asks us to do something, but that doesn't mean we are 'fixing' the problem on our own. It means we were humble enough to recognize we don't possess all the knowledge, have all the power, or understand fully how to 'deal with' the issue at hand - then when God tells us how to deal with it, we do as we are told! Sometimes we will be told to lay it right there at the foot of the ...

My troubles turned out all for the best—they forced me to learn from your textbook. (Psalm 119:71) To disturb the mental calm and contentment of an individual is indeed an unfortunate state of affairs. To constantly worry, be in distress, feel agitated or stirred up is a terrible place to find oneself. There are a whole lot of things in this life that annoy the stuffing right out of us. One trouble upon another will wear us down. If you have ever observed a stone 'grooved' by a constant drip of water, you may not know exactly when the 'erosion' happens, but it does! We never really know what "drop of water" will actually be the first to begin the "groove", nor do we know when the last drop will accomplish its work, do we? We have lots of tiny drops, all working away to "cut a groove" across our lives, trying desperately to divert the waters in a totally different direction. The seemingly impervious stone is eventually eroded away by the ...