The Plumbline

Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends. (Proverbs 17:9 NLT) We are reminded that, "When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future." (Bernard Meltzer) The past is riddled with failures - both ours and those that were committed by others. Some deeply affect us, while others are easily forgotten, hardly even being mentioned in the first place. Deep pain can be felt when there are wounds as a result of those missteps in relationships, but they don't have to be dwelt upon. Instead of dwelling upon them, we need to get them out in the open, let go of the offense, and bind up the wounds with prayer and love. It could be said that forgiveness is so hard because the hurt is so real. I would challenge that with the truth of love being just as real. Hurts happen - healing is likely to happen if we stop 'picking at the scabs' all the time! The moment we choose to not forgive someone, we are choo...

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:2) Ever made a really dumb decision? I know I can list a few, perhaps even more than a few. We all make mistakes sometimes, some 'dumber' than others, with some standing out as the 'dumbest' of the 'dumb'. These probably have led to some pretty deep hurts - hurts that seem to hang around long after the decision was made and done. What do we do with the deep hurts that are part of our past mistakes? We can repent, 'turn a new leaf', and move on, or we can harbor those hurts, rehashing the guilt of those decisions over and over again.  When the hurts of the past aren't in the past, we find the rehearsal of those hurts to sometimes be worse than the original 'misstep' was in the first place. God wants to do a work within us...

Laughter can conceal a heavy heart, but when the laughter ends, the grief remains. (Proverbs 14:13) Nicolas Chamfort said, "The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed." Laughter is not always from a cheerful and giddy heart. There are many times it conceals a hurt much deeper than the naked eye can see. There is little mirth in fear, but someone who is fearful can giggle or laugh in their nervousness over the situation. Sometimes there is very little 'amusement' in what is going on in someone's life, but there will be laughter instead of tears. We may never know what a laugh really conceals, but when we are open to being led by the Holy Spirit, the opportunity to help someone past their fear, grief, or inner pain may reveal itself. What makes a heart heavy? We all realize loss can weigh a heart down, sometimes for a long time. There are times when our heart is made heavy because of what we are feeling for others - experiencing just a bit of t...

"Suppose" can be used as the setting up of an argument, or a belief or theory, as though you were prepared to defend it to the hilt.  Have you ever had one of those moments in time where you want to disprove someone and set up the arguments for your position with the statement, "Suppose that..."?  I think we all have at one time or another, because it is human nature to present what we believe or have perceived to see if it is really trustworthy.  In doing this, we present our side of the argument, then we await the rebuttal.  For example, we start our study of the earth with the statement, "Suppose that the earth is round, how do we keep from falling off as it rotates?"  The statement set forth is the perceived or believed fact, followed by the supposition or question.  We already are holding the truth to be true that the earth is round - now we just want to understand why we don't go flying off into space when it rotates on its axis!  Ofte...