The Plumbline

They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. (Mark 8:22-25) We don't know why Jesus made him walk out of town with him. Maybe it was so he would begin to trust Jesus a little by walking with him for a while; learning to depend on him to bring him safely to the place he needed to be. We don't know why the first application of mud didn't do the trick. Maybe it was because Jesus knew something about this man, or those who were looking on that day, which made him take that time in order to help others around him come to a greater place of trust and faith. We may not kn

O Lord, if you heal me, I will be truly healed; if you save me, I will be truly saved. My praises are for you alone! (Jeremiah 17:14) God does nothing 'half-way' - he takes everything to completion. It may not be in our timing, on whatever terms we imagined in our minds, or even as someone else might think God should be working in our lives. He comes through each and every time - sometimes with blessing beyond measure, and sometimes with correction that is much needed. What he heals, he does unto completion. When God begins to work on an area of your life, don't be surprised when he continues to work time and time again until the mission is complete! God's work in our lives is sometimes slower than we'd like, and he focuses on areas that we might have thought he was through with a long, long time ago. All of a sudden, he begins to speak to you about that area and you almost take a sudden deep breath as though you were surprised to find him tackling that issue onc

I am going to ask a tough question today, but if we are truthful on this one, we may just realize a healing at the end. How long are we willing to live WITH our troubles before we ask God to get us out of those troubles? For some of us, it has taken us a long, long time to come to our knees, admitting we have been dealing with this 'trouble' longer than we ever should have. Trouble in the form of bitterness, anger issues, hurt feelings, or attitudes of deep regret and shame. While we are living WITH these 'troubles' we are 'hoping' for something to be different, but we don't really come out and aggressively seek our deliverance from them! It is time to admit we have been living 'with' them for way too long and we need God's help to finally move us from our 'placement' INSIDE those troubles. Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the

  Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. (Psalm 139:23-24) Have you ever prayer a similar prayer? It is a kind of scary thing to ask God to test your heart and mind to see if there is any offensive stuff there, isn't it? You almost don't want to ask because you know there is! When God points out what 'offends' him, he doesn't do it to humiliate us, or even to chastise us. He does it to show us how deeply he loves us - because he wants us to be free of all that garbage that takes up emotional, mental, or physical space in our lives. To be led, one must submit to the one leading. To be whole, one must submit to the one capable of ridding us of all the stuff that keeps us 'broken' and 'hurt'. When we don't know the way, we seek guidance via a mapping service, GPS, or the good old way of asking someone for directions. Why do

Seek God while he’s here to be found, pray to him while he’s close at hand. Let the wicked abandon their way of life and the evil their way of thinking. Let them come back to God, who is merciful, come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness. (Isaiah 55:6) " When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice ." (William James) We are all broken people - all of us have our weaknesses and we all make mistakes. We all need to make the one supreme choice - will we serve self or Jesus? Seek God while he's here to be found - while he is close at hand, cry out. If we want healing in this world, we all need to abandon our desire to live by our own set of rules.  Seek - go in search of; question so as to obtain; go to that place where you can meet a holy God. Where is that place? At the feet of Jesus. There is no other way to God except through trust in the one and only Son of God - Jesus. Lavish with forgiveness - think about the immense lov

Deal with your pain or it will deal with you. We have to actually 'process' our pain if we are to ever get beyond our pain. Pain comes in many forms - physical, emotional, relational, and even spiritual. We cannot ignore pain, but we try to push it down over and over again rather than taking it to God or seeking help for it. We hope that ignoring it will help us somehow, but it just brings repeated torment to us. Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets. (2 Corinthians 7:10) God's plan is for the pain to drive us closer to him - not further away. When we withdraw from the pain and try to bury it, we are allowing pain to drive us away from God. As much as God wants to be worshipped, he also wants us to be open with him in ALL our needs. Every weakness we have, he stands ready

Don’t overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day. God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness . He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change. (2 Peter 3:8-9) There are times I overlook the obvious, believing instead there must be something more to what I am seeing or hearing. I guess this is human nature - we see or hear one thing, then immediately jump to the conclusion there must be some other meaning - either because we don't think things can be THAT simple, or we believe others just could not MEAN what they are doing / saying. I think this is some defense mechanism on our part - protecting us from some things we just don't want to deal with right now, or attempting to believe the best about another just because we don't want to think they could behave that way. In some respects, this

It was Peter Marshall who reminded us: " The measure of life is not its duration, but its donation. " What has been your "donation" this past year? Have you made a difference in the life of someone? Has your life been an instrument of grace and love? Have you encountered difficulties, but steadfastly stayed the course so others who will come behind you may see plainly what it takes to reach the next destination? If 2017 didn't end on the note you'd hope it would, there is always 2018 to improve the donation! 32 “Do you think you deserve credit for merely loving those who love you? Even the godless do that! 33 And if you do good only to those who do you good—is that so wonderful? Even sinners do that much! 34 And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, what good is that? Even the most wicked will lend to their own kind for full return! 35 “Love your enemies! Do good to them! Lend to them! And don’t be concerned about the fact that they won’t rep

Cesare Pavese said, " We do not remember days, we remember moments. " There are lots and lots of moments in my lifetime that come flooding into my thought on occasion, some bringing warm feelings of pleasure and others causing just a little bit of pain as a little bit of the memory of an old wound is recounted. I had one such unpleasant memory on my recent trip with my BFF while we were just sharing a little of ourselves. What struck me the most is that she sensed my intensely deep pain as she reached out and just simply touched my arm, and in an instant, without one word from her, the pain dissipated. God has a way of helping us even when we don't recognize we need that help, my friends. In any moment, we never know when a moment remembered can become a time of healing - no words necessary, just the touch of grace. Praise the Lord! I thank the Lord with all my heart in the assembly of his good people. The Lord does wonderful things, more than anyone could ask for. The th

Have you ever stopped to consider the process of healing? It is a process, to say the least, for no healing ever comes instantaneously. In fact, if it does, that is called a miracle! Healing begins the moment there is an injury. There is no need of healing until the injury has occurred, right? The moment you cut yourself, the body sets into motion processes designed to "wall off" the bleeding. Even the pain you feel is intended to get you to pay attention to the cut - to guard it from further "insult" such as dirt. As those cells begin to mend, there is much "debris" which must be removed in order for the cells to knit back together. They never go back together in quite the same way, though. In fact, they leave noticeable signs there has been an injury. Maybe this is to remind us that injury is possible when we do something that same way again, or maybe it is to remind us of the greatness of our Creator in healing what no one else could mend! Purify me f

Those who love discipline love knowledge, but fools hate any kind of correction. The Eternal prefers those who do good, but He condemns those who plot evil. Doing what is wrong keeps everyone off balance and insecure, but those who do right will never be uprooted. (Proverbs 12:1-3 VOICE) Okay, getting totally "real" with you today I'd have to admit enduring discipline is the furthest thing from "fun" and "enjoyable"! In fact, it is downright hard and very humbling. Without it I'd never have grown, nor would I have realized some of the tremendous things I have come to know and appreciate. Paul tells us to count it all joy when we encounter these rough places, because they will produce things like endurance, solid character, and patience. I am not sure why God uses these tough places as times to create such awesome stuff within us, but it may just be that tough skin of pride we have that just cannot be permeated otherwise! Fools hate any kind of c

" Pain reaches the heart with electrical speed, but truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier. " (Barbara Kingsolver) I love this expression because it speaks so clearly as to why it is we deeply experience some things so doggone quickly, then take eons to actually have others things even inch their way beneath out skin! Pain jars us - truth sometimes doesn't even affect us until some time way into the distance when we have one of those "ah-ha" moments. I think the degree to which we have been influenced by pain may also be the degree to which we are willing to actually trust someone to be true and reliable - even if that someone is God himself! DEMONSTRATE Your ways, O Eternal One. Teach me to understand so I can follow. EASE me down the path of Your truth. FEED me Your word because You are the True God who has saved me. I wait all day long, hoping, trusting in You. (Psalm 25:4-5 VOICE) Pain is an "indicator" of something which we need

I observed a little photo on Facebook this morning (credit goes to the Warriors of Christ community on Facebook). It was simple, but the thought behind it was pretty significant! Two images - one of a Bandaid, the other of an open Bible. One caption read - "This is for outside wounds" while the other read "This is for inside wounds". Brilliant!  We find all kinds of ways to bind up our wounds on the outside from bandages for those larger cuts or sores, to a small wedge of toilet paper to cover that nick obtained while shaving. In time, they usually heal because they were covered over by something while they had time for a scab to form and the open surface area to close.  Sometimes this is all we need - a simple covering in order to allow time for the wounds to heal. Then there are times when the bandage on the outside means there has been some work done on the inside, as well.  All praise goes to God, Father of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One. He is the Fat

On a recent post from Spirit Science on their Facebook page, I saw this little quote which made me grateful for all three: " Wrinkles mean you laughed, gray hair means you cared, and scars mean you lived !" I am seeing more wrinkles, so I must be laughing a lot. I have developed quite a few more gray hairs over the past two years, so I must be doing my share of caring. I have also developed a plethora of scars (both seen and unseen) - so I think I have done a lot of living, as well!  There is a way of living which helps me move beyond those scars, though.  It is life in the presence of God himself.  The internal and external scars of life can only be mended by his hand - no other "fix" remains fixed.  I know this because I have tried to "heal" broken places of my life by my own doing and let me just assure you, the mess I make of it produces nothing more than a Keloid Scar.  In a technical sense, a Keloid Scar is one that doesn't know when to quit

There is something pretty important we need to realize as we come to Jesus. As we come, we often expect the immediate healing of all our anxieties, hang-ups, and long-held issues.  The frustration comes in knowing there are things in our lives which Jesus forgives and then he "deals" with them for a while until we realize they are finally gone.  I often throw clothes in the washer without doing a thorough inspection of them to see if they have any noticeable stains on them. When I remove them, I usually try to look at them a little bit before I put them in the dryer because we all know the heat of the dryer "sets" the stain in deeper. There are those occasions when I just plop and throw - not really paying much attention to them either when I put them in the washer or when I add them to the dryer.  Guess what usually happens when this occurs - yep, there is inevitably some big old stain right down the front of one of mom's tops, or on my favorite pair of pants.

A victim is someone who is actually cheated or deceived by their own emotions because of the actions of another.  It is quite easy to slip into the role of "victim" whenever we feel like we have been wronged - someone has done or said something which makes us feel threatened, misunderstood, "used" in some way, etc.  There are people who really are victims, though. They have been truthfully harmed by another and it is more than emotional scars they may be dealing with.  They could have injuries to their body, or perhaps have suffered an assault on their finances.  Either way, they all have something in common - they have had the actions of another negatively affect their lives.  There is something God wants us to see, though - our current circumstances are not permanent - he has the ability to make those areas damaged by another into something honoring and glorifying for his use.  This should give even those who have suffered the most destructive of actions some sen

Ever heard that little verse:  Don't Worry, Be Happy?  Well, try that one on for size and you are likely a little like me - worrying is just a part of life and it is kind of "Pollyanna-like" to just think you can shut it off and "Be Happy".  One thing I know for sure - God wants his kids "happy" - but we get this word "happy" confused with a state of mind or euphoria.  Instead, we need to learn to think of this as a lifestyle - one of being blessed, even in the midst of conflict.  If we consider some of what we have heard to be true about God, we might just begin to see how this is actually possible.  First, he is listening. Now, one of the things which contributes to anxiety more than anything else is the belief no one knows the situation we are in.  It is comforting to know God hasn't forgotten to listen to our needs.  Second, he is ready to rescue.  If we are worrying, we aren't looking for a rescue, but are looking for a way to re

Blind, crippled, and paralyzed - all lined up, neatly tucked away, just waiting. The sheep gate was the first gate rebuilt when Nehemiah set about the work of rebuilding Jerusalem.  This gate had the unique purpose of being the "entry point" for the sacrifices which would be offered at the Temple in Jerusalem.  Now, don't you find it a little interesting that the blind, crippled, and paralyzed were lined up along the pathway of "sacrifice"?  I had never really connected the two before, but it struck me this morning - these people were waiting for their healing along the pathway of sacrifice!  Blind - those without sight, plunged into darkness, or at least the haziness and blur of vision.  Crippled - those who lived with some condition making them less than perfect.  Paralyzed - those unable to make a move on their own, debilitated by that which consumed them.  All lined up neatly, tucked away in their alcoves, waiting.  I hadn't see that before either.  Al

Have you ever taken a "risk of faith"?  So intent on getting something you desperately needed so as to push through anything in your way - giving it your all?  We find ourselves in many a tough spot on occasion, but I wonder how many times we wait until we are right there in that spot to begin to take the risk of faith.  If we were probably honest, it isn't until someone tells us the bad news of a reduction in workforce, gives us the "incurable" verdict, or leaves us in the lurch with no way of escape that we often come to a place of desperation which drives us to "risk" our faith.  This morning, we look at a woman who lived with a debilitating disease - not for a matter of a few months or years, but for over twelve years.  The very life was being taken from her by a constant issue of blood.  Today, most women would consult their doctor, be scheduled for a surgery to stop the bleeding, and then be on their merry way.  Not the case for this woman.  It w

I have one "custom-made" piece of jewelry - a pinky ring.  It is made up of some gold from various pieces I had, but the most precious part of the ring is the three diamonds channel set at an angle into this ring.  They are from my mom's wedding band.  After dad passed, mom knew I had a desire to have the ring made.  I had only one diamond to place there and was considering placing a couple of amethysts next to it, but she offered the diamonds.  The "value" of the ring went up right there!  It wasn't just the physical value of the ring, but the value the heirloom portion of this ring!  She gave me a "piece" of what dad and she shared - nearly thirty years of great love!  No amount of planning on my part would have produced the same ring!  I have worn this ring every day for twenty plus years.  It has worn an indentation into my pinky finger!   The right word at the right time  is like a custom-made piece of jewelry, a nd a wise friend’s timely re