The Plumbline

Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting. (William Arthur Ward) If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings, who would stand a chance? As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit, and that’s why you’re worshiped. (Psalm 130:3-4) As it turns out...those are actually words of realization on the part of our psalmist. When we have that moment of recognition that only God can provide, what a moment it is! Just grab hold of what he is saying here - God could keep record of all our mistakes, making it impossible for any of us to actually 'clean up our acts' totally. He could make us pay restitution for each and every failure, but he doesn't. Instead, he paid the price - not out of 'obligation' or 'regret', but out of love. His 'habit' is to live and breathe love - where love is, grace abounds. If God gives so freely of his love - forgiveness being an integral part of love - how is it we can hold grudges against each other? What is a...

Jonathan Swift said, "Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others." H. Jackson Brown said something similar: "Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye." Some believe we become kind of indifferent to what we see the most.  When we take in the same things day after day, we often don't realize how much they have changed in the course of time because we haven't anymore "acuity of perception" when it comes to those things.  It isn't that they become "invisible" to us as much as we become "numb" to the subtle changes they are going through. This might not be important to the one who views the Golden Gate bridge from far off in the distance, taking in that majestic expanse over the churning ocean waters near San Francisco, but to the one in their car right now passing over that suspended expanse, they are counting on someone taking in every nook and cranny of that bridge on a regular basis with the eye of a...