The Plumbline

If words are but pictures of our thoughts, what picture are you painting? It is possible the picture painted would enthrall some, put off others, and not even faze the rest. It is quite possible the words we choose to speak, as well as the ones we choose to never speak, allow others to see 'into' our hearts. God wanted us to know his heart well, so he gave us his WORD to reveal it! My son, pay attention to what I say. Listen closely to my words. Don’t let them out of your sight. Never stop thinking about them. These words are the secret of life and health to all who discover them. Above all, be careful what you think because your thoughts control your life. (Proverbs 4:20-23) God tells us to pay attention to what he says because it reveals his inner thoughts, purposes, and power. Herein is the rub - we hear without really listening - not really coming to understand how he works, what he desires, or what is available to us in him. Maybe it is time we learn to put away or pull ou...

Life Hack #22: It’s better to be wise than strong; intelligence outranks muscle any day. Strategic planning is the key to warfare; to win, you need a lot of good counsel. (Proverbs 24:5-6) Back in the day, it was not uncommon to witness kids squaring off on the playground, then announcing: "My dad can beat your dad any day"? One child trying to prove something - that he or she has an advantage. Advantage is something we have been trying to "get" ever since we took our first breath. We are after any opportunity or circumstance we can "work our way" into to ensure success or a particular desired end. I remember learning some hand-to-hand combat maneuvers in the military, somehow thinking knowing the maneuvers would give me some advantage over another if the situation arose. I know I would have zero advantage over a black belt in karate, let alone a 250-pound angry military man! Why? What I was putting my faith in as "advantage" was pretty unre...

Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift. (Ephesians 4:29) We might just forget that 'words' are a gift. Each and every one we speak has the power to build up, encourage, point someone in the right direction, confirm, or enable. How many times do we hang onto the ones that do just the opposite? We get all hyper-focused on the ones that didn't actually 'do much for us', or actually weren't meant to 'hurt', but we internalized them as something that hurt us. As important as it is for each of us to watch how we talk (the words that come out of our mouths), it is equally as important that each of us begins to 'weigh' the words we hear for their true value and stop focusing on what it is we thought we heard. We can 'take' words so many ways, can't we? I could tell you the sky is cloudy today, and you take it to mean we are going to be stuck inside not doing the things w...

Hey, does anyone else out there ever feel like your life is just unraveling a bit? There are days where my ends seem a little frayed - how about yours? Those days don't always come that frequently, but when they do, man oh man...they can leave you exhausted! Some of mine come in the form of being there when the Department of Health walks in for an unannounced inspection or complaint investigation when I am the sole occupant of the office! Then maybe there is that moment when you see deadlines fast approaching, but you have put off that project you just didn't want to get to - now it looms like a spider coming closer and closer while you have no shoes on! You know the feeling - that moment of panic and dismay - wondering how you will ever get past it! What we must always recognize is that God is still in control - even when we have lost it! Going through a long line of prophets, God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries. Recently he spoke to us dire...

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. ( James 1:19   NLT ) Do you know anybody who can go from "chill" to "overkill" in somewhere under 30 seconds? Uh oh...did I just hear someone say, "Yep, that's me"? You aren't alone, my friend - there are lots and lots of us, sometimes more than we want to admit, that can lose our cool quicker than ice melts on an Arizona sidewalk in summer! Most of the time, the challenge isn't in not reacting - it is in choosing what it is we will react to. Three concepts are outlined in our passage here, but before we explore these, let's look at something that gets overlooked - the introduction to these words. James has just spent some time speaking about how God blesses those who endure testing and temptation with something called patience. He adds to that thought the reminder it is "when" we are tempted, not "if...

“And so, my children, listen to me,  for all who follow my ways are joyful. Listen to my instruction and be wise.    Don’t ignore it.  J oyful are those who listen to me,  watching for me daily at my gates,   waiting for me outside my home!   For whoever finds me finds life  and receives favor from the  Lord .  36  But those who miss me injure themselves.  All who hate me love death.” (Proverbs 8:32-36 NLT) The call is to "listen" - not absent-mindedly, but with deliberate attentiveness to what is being said, how it is said, and even when it is said - for all God says has a purpose and a plan and a specific timing.  God's instruction brings joy. You might ask how that can be since his Word sometimes brings conviction. The end result of conviction is repentance - the result of repentance is a "do-over" - a chance to do again what the heart had not done well the first time. How many times in this life do we actually g...

"God speaks to me not through the thunder and the earthquake, nor through the ocean and the stars, but through the Son of Man, and speaks in a language adapted to my imperfect sight and hearing." (William Lyon Phelps)  I want God to speak to me in the thunder - because I could be sure I heard him then. I want to feel his voice penetrate me like the quaking of the earth's crust. I desire to feel his current pulsing within me as the waves of the ocean. I even wish for just a sparkle of his presence in times when I don't feel him all that close. These are the ways I want God - but you really know how it is I hear and feel him? Yep - in the still small voice, or the peaceful repose of just resting in his presence when I don't know what else to do. Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ( Matthew 11:28 NLT ) As with any other relationship, hearing God's voice is easier when we have grow n in ...

Lead and follow - two directional words, each conveying a little different action from us.  To lead, one is guiding something in a certain direction - the direction already being predetermined and the course understood.  To follow, one moves behind, but in the same direction as the one who leads.  It is most hard to get our ears to be leaders and our tongue followers, isn't it?  Most of the time, we allow our tongues to lead and then surprise our ears with whatever our tongues say! Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.  (James 1:19-21 MSG) This passage makes it quite clear why we might just have some of the issues in life we face today...

Ears that hear and eyes that see— we get our basic equipment from  God !  (Proverbs 20:12 MSG) If you have ever looked into buying some new appliance, a new car, or even a new home built to your specifications, you probably have had to consider just how many "bells and whistles" you wanted (or could afford).  The basic model comes with just the minimums - the more you add, the more the costs add up.  Soon, the $299 "deal" you saw advertised becomes $599 because you just could not imagine life without the extra spin cycles, and the automatic sensor for this or that!  Sometimes we find the "extra" stuff we just "had to have" gives us more headaches than they are worth in the end!   Our passage today speaks to us of the "basic equipment" given to us by God. Ears that hear and eyes that see - basic equipment.  I wonder just how many times we take the "basics" for granted, focusing more on the "bells and whistles" we...

11-13 Scripture reassures us, "No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it." It's exactly the same no matter what a person's religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. "Everyone who calls, 'Help, God!' gets help."   14 But how can people call for help if they don't know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven't heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it?  (Romans 10:11-14 The Message) You may find the fact that calling out to God ensures a listening ear - each and every time - a little hard to believe, but it is true!  God listens AND he hears!  As a little girl, I learned the story about "crying wolf" too many times.  The idea of "crying wolf" was really a symbol of sounding a fa...

1-5  "Let me set this before you as plainly as I can. If a person climbs over or through the fence of a sheep pen instead of going through the gate, you know he's up to no good—a sheep rustler! The shepherd walks right up to the gate. The gatekeeper opens the gate to him and the sheep recognize his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he gets them all out, he leads them and they follow because they are familiar with his voice. They won't follow a stranger's voice but will scatter because they aren't used to the sound of it." (John 10:1-5) We don't see too many sheep around my neck of the woods, but whenever I see them in the fields, grazing just prior to "lambing" season, I love to stop for a few minutes to watch them.  The ranchers have a few fields they bring them to just at that time, and those fields are usually rich with some type of crop that has been recently harvested.  The sheep appear to be eating the remainin...

9-10 He said, "Go and tell this people:   "'Listen hard, but you aren't going to get it;  look hard, but you won't catch on.'   Make these people blockheads,  with fingers in their ears and blindfolds on their eyes, so they won't see a thing, won't hear a word, so they won't have a clue about what's going on     and, yes, so they won't turn around and be made whole." (Isaiah 6:9-10) Imagine the surprise in Isaiah's eyes when he hears these words from the one who has just called and anointed him to be the prophet to the nation of Israel.  He has stepped forward, hearing the call of God, in obedience....and this is the first message he is told to deliver to the people!  No easy calling here!  I think I would be reconsidering if I took one step backward when everyone was taking one forward!   Isaiah is asked to bring the message that reveals the heart and spirit of the nation - you listen, but you don't hear; you see, but y...