The Plumbline

Some people refuse to bend when someone corrects them. Eventually they will break, and there will be no one to repair the damage. (Proverbs 29:1) I became a good typist pretty quickly while in high school and this was probably because dad had an old manual typewriter I could practice on at home. Yet, no matter how "good" I became, I made mistakes which required correction. Not only because of key-strike errors, but in my posture! I remember my teacher coming up behind me, putting her fingers between my shoulder blades and poking me. Why? I was supposed to have excellent posture - somehow making me type with proficiency and speed! I was frequently corrected on keeping both feet on the ground while typing - as though the stability this gave would keep the typewriter and me firmly planted on good old terra-firma! Despite all the correction I received in my three years of office machine classes, guess how my feet are today. You got it - crossed, lazily slung under the desk -...

I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 7:21-25) When I want this, I do that. Sound familiar? It is a real struggle for all of us. No one is without some struggle with wanting to do what is right and somehow struggling to 'hit' that mark. Don't miss what Paul is saying - the battle or struggle is really within our minds. Our hearts are sure we want to do what is right, but our minds get all muddled up in the temptation that is pulling us in the opposite direction. When I was in high school, I took an archery course. It taught me one thing - aiming for the bullseye didn't ensure...

The wise are glad to be instructed, but babbling fools fall flat on their faces. (Proverbs 10:8) How we embrace instruction tells a story that we may not always want to hear. The wise embrace it - maybe not with enthusiasm all the time, but with an integrity of heart that says they want to learn what God teaches, regardless of the cost. The fool will just babble about why it is 'too hard', 'not something he needs', or that there is 'some other answer' he must discover before he 'tries this one'. Oh, I hope none of us are like the fool who babbles on, but rather are like the wise who sit at the feet of Jesus and listen intently. If we want to reject God's teachings, it is our prerogative. In turn, don't be surprised when the same lesson keeps coming around and around, maybe with a different presentation each time, but with the same 'heart intent'. God isn't going to let us just reject the lesson once and then say that is the way it wil...

Correct a worthless bragger, and all you will get are insults and injuries. Any bragger you correct will only hate you. But if you correct someone who has common sense, you will be loved. If you have good sense, instruction will help you to have even better sense. And if you live right, education will help you to know even more. (Proverbs 9:7-9) We definitely benefit from correction when it is embraced and does the work it was intended to do, but it is not always pleasant or easily embraced. Did it ever occur to you that God is giving us a chance to prove we have actually learned from our mistakes? We need to view correction as a means of learning from mistakes - not as a punishment or some form of "penalty" for what it is we have done. The truth is we make a sufficient number of mistakes each day - if it were not for the ability to "correct" those mistakes along the way, I don't think many relationships would have lasted, nor would progress have been made i...

Life Hack #13: Don’t be afraid to correct your young ones; a spanking won’t kill them. A good spanking, in fact, might save them from something worse than death. (Proverbs 23:13-14) Children need correction in their formative years, and this is probably one of the hottest debated topics among parents today. There is a principle being taught in the scripture which goes beyond the "means" or "method" of discipline used to correct the child to the "heart" behind all discipline rendered by a parent. Discipline is for the correction of behavior which will lead the child into harmful stuff if ignored - and when rendered with the heart and compassion of a loving parent, it should always be within the boundaries of what does not bring more "harm" to the child. God's lessons are sometimes hard for me to learn, I don't know about you. When I am not getting them, he sometimes has to resort to what brings me to a place of paying attention. A parent...

I know, God, that mere mortals can’t run their own lives, that men and women don’t have what it takes to take charge of life. So correct us, God, as you see best. (Jeremiah 10:23-24) Have you ever found yourself in a position where you required a substitute for what is wrong or inaccurate in your life? Correction is needed, but maybe it is not so much because we are completely wrong, but there is some "inaccuracy" in our lives which gets us going in the wrong direction. It is kind of like only seeing half of a room in front of us one way, then turning around to see the room we thought was filled with beauty also contained a few smelly corpses. Correction puts things in the right framework - gives us the right perspective when what we have been pursuing is just a little inaccurate. It also gives us a swift kick in the seat when what we have been pursuing is totally and completely wrong! If you have ever taken your hands of the wheel in your car to see if your car will ...

But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master. (Romans 6:23) Who tells you what to do? We probably all have persons in authority within our lives that give us tasks to complete and we go off in the direction of 'doing' whatever it is we are asked to do. Bosses are probably at the top of the list - they by nature of their position are guiding the work that gets done each day. If you are a child, parents are those individuals who remind the child of the bed needing to be made, teeth requiring a little scrubbing, and toilet paper that needs replacing when they use it all up. Traffic cops expect we will observe what they tell us to do, diverting this w...

Have you ever been just a little bit 'over-the-top' when it comes to your competitive spirit? I watch some guys play basketball in their 50's and 60's like they were in their teens and wonder just how great they are going to feel in the morning. Some will awaken with aches and pains in places they forgot even existed! They will find their 'enthusiasm' of the day before might have been a little overboard when they realize how foolish they were to drive for the basket as earnestly as they did in order to lay up that shot. We all have a bent toward enthusiastic competition in some form or another, although it may not be in the realm of sports, it still exists. What we do with our competitiveness matters, though. Too much can actually be our undoing - not enough can cause us to never try anything new. He sat down and summoned the Twelve. “So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all.”  Mark 9:35 MSG I'd say the twelve disciples ma...

The road to life is a disciplined life;  ignore correction and you're lost for good.  (Proverbs 10:17 MSG) While I don't always reflect it, I am working toward having a disciplined focus in life. I want to be honest here - disciplined focus in every area of your life is hard work. A disciplined life is one that is molded - one that receives the necessary training that corrects the course of one's actions. Correction can occur at about three points along the journey we call life - either at the beginning of the course prior to the action being taken, mid-way through the consequences of choosing the wrong course, or after the course has been completed and we find ourselves experiencing a pretty unwanted outcome. The one who has chosen to live a disciplined life has accepted the fact that training is a necessary part of life - as much as having a 'personal trainer' isn't my goal in life, I need one. One who is willing to live a disciplined life has come to acc...

Some people refuse to bend when someone corrects them. Eventually they will break, and there will be no one to repair the damage.   (Proverbs 29:1 ERV) "You get tragedy where the tree, instead of bending, breaks."  (Ludwig Wittgenstein) We come across those from time to time who are just "un-bendable". They refuse any advice to do something a different way, determining their way is best of all, despite their lack of progress or inefficiencies. When we face these individuals, what is our reaction to their determination to "not bend"? It may be that we dig in our heels a little bit harder and try to make the point a little louder or with more determination ourselves. It could also be that we shake our heads, turn away, and just leave them to their own self-directed course. Either way, we do little to influence their unyielding determination. What they may ultimately require is the touch of God's hand in their lives, bringing such a "storm"...

Back in the day, when learning how to type in one of my high school classrooms, I remember having to bring this list of supplies to the class.  We had to buy a ream of white typing paper (not the kind you put through the copy machine, but the real stuff), a pack of carbon paper (something most kids today have no idea about), and a couple of special erasers with the little brush on the end to correct any mistakes you'd make.  One of the rules we learned was how to handle the "erasures" or "corrections".  If we scrubbed too hard with the eraser, we'd make a hole in the paper.  Too inadequately and we'd have a tell-tale correction.  Then there was this whole rule about not allowing all those eraser "flakes" to fall into the typewriter.  Trust me - I was glad when they invented white-out!  I became a good typist pretty quickly and this was probably because dad had an old manual typewriter I could practice on at home. Yet, no matter how "good...

Correction:  Something that is substituted or proposed for what is wrong or inaccurate; an adjustment made in order to increase accuracy; the reversal of a trend.   Most of us think of correction as the punishment we receive which is intended to put us back on the right course.  In essence, this is only one definition of the term - but the idea is that of "substituting" one behavior for another in order to get a different outcome.  In other words, if we continue doing the same thing, we will always get what we have always gotten!  So, correction is designed to help us do something "differently" in order to change the outcome.  Accept correction, and you will find life; reject correction, and you will miss the road. You can hide your hatred by telling lies, but you are a fool to spread lies. You will say the wrong thing if you talk too much—so be sensible and watch what you say. The words of a good person are like pure silver, but the thoughts of an e...

Monty Python once said, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours."  Sure, he wasn't a great theologian or deep-thinking philosopher of our time, but these words are profound nonetheless.  The old adage "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" really is not true, is it?  Sticks and stones may do physical harm - injuries which are apparent on the "outside" of a man. Words have a way of doing emotional and spiritual damage - injuries which are not as apparent because they occur "within" the man.  Maybe this is why there is repeated reminders about the importance of our words - for what gets spoken has a potential of leaving us broken.  You can quote me on that! Words satisfy the mind as much as fruit does the stomach;   good talk is as gratifying as a good harvest.   Words kill, words give life;   they’re either poison or fruit—you choose.  (Proverbs 18...

Storm:  A disturbance of the normal condition.  Pretty much sums up most of life for some folks today, huh?  No matter which way they look, everything about their "normal" is in a place of disturbance!  "Normal" is no longer smooth sailing with calms seas and pretty skies above.  "Normal" is really pretty rocky waters, waves almost overwhelming you so as to affect your ability to stay upright, and torrential downpours which just seem to add to the problems at hand.  What we do in the midst of the storm often is our best defense against the storm! Next day, out on the high seas again and badly damaged now by the storm, we dumped the cargo overboard. The third day the sailors lightened the ship further by throwing off all the tackle and provisions. It had been many days since we had seen either sun or stars. Wind and waves were battering us unmercifully, and we lost all hope of rescue.   With our appetite for both food and life long gone, Paul took ...

Correction:  a substitute for what is wrong or inaccurate.  Sometimes we find ourselves in a little need of correction, huh?  Maybe it is not so much being completely wrong, but it is a sense of "inaccuracy" in our lives which gets us going in the wrong direction.  It is kind of like only seeing half of a room and then thinking the other half is a mirror image of the half we can see.  Wouldn't we be surprised to turn around and see the room we thought was filled with beautiful artwork also contained a few corpses?  Correction puts things in the right framework - gives us the right perspective when what we have been pursuing is just a little inaccurate.  It also gives us a swift kick in the seat when what we have been pursuing is totally and completely wrong! I know,  God , that mere mortals  can’t run their own lives, t hat men and women      don’t have what it takes to take charge of life.   So correct us,  God , a...

  1  If you love learning, you love the discipline that goes with it— how shortsighted to refuse correction!  (Proverbs 12:1 The Message) If you've read even one of my blog posts, you will know that I love to learn new meaning of words, explore how things work, and to simply understand the "why" behind things.  I have a mind that works almost all the time - finding myself awaking in the night hours with ideas for the next blog, "fixes" to something that is needing my attention at work or at home, etc.  I have had friends ask, "Don't you every just 'shut-off' and chill?"  I guess that I'd have to say that I do, but it is just like taking a dimmer switch and turning down the "intensity" a little!  The light just never is completely shut off! The passage today deals with a "test" - kind of like a little litmus test - to be able to tell if we really love being a disciple of Christ.  The first part of this verse is the...

17  The road to life is a disciplined life;    ignore correction and you're lost for good.  (Proverbs 10:17 The Message) Not too many of us embrace discipline very willingly.  As a matter of fact, we probably chafe a little under it!  We often think that someone is being too harsh in their "judgment" of us and we want to rationalize why it is that we are the way we are.  The proverb is pretty plain about this, though.  If we want to really live well, it is done by having a disciplined life.  If we ignore correction, we face the inevitability of a whole lot of wrong turns! Since the advent of GPS devices for our smart-phones and cars, most of us have given up the old way of "navigating" to an unfamiliar destination.  My parents traveled in a recreational vehicle for about six years after their retirement.  Mom's "duty" was as "navigator".  She had a huge box of maps - one for each state, and even some for Canada.  T...