The Plumbline

Be good to your servant, that I may live and obey your word. Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your instructions. I am only a foreigner in the land. Don’t hide your commands from me! (Psalm 119:17-19) Have you ever heard the saying, "You have not because you ask not"? In reality, many of us spend very little time asking God to open his word to us. We go right to it, open it up, then start reading. When nothing seems to 'pop off the pages' at us, we get a little concerned. We ought to! We neglected to ask God to open the truths hidden deep within those words. Sometimes they are quite obvious, but at others, we need help understanding how they apply to our lives right now. When the psalmist (King David) said he was a 'foreigner in the land', he wasn't applying that term to a real strip of land. He was saying he was a foreigner when it came to understanding God's word. There are lots of times we probably feel like 'foreigners' in God...

I came across this quote this morning and just had to share it with you: " It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way ." (Rollo May, Psychologist) While I don't subscribe to many of the beliefs of existential psychology, this thought just captured my attention because of the simple observation May made about us 'running faster'. Those who have lost their way often are like little gerbils in the proverbial wheel - running, running, running. All the while, they are getting absolutely nowhere. It doesn't matter how fast we run - we are still lost! The more we run, the deeper into the place of 'being lost' we find ourselves. Sometimes the best thing we can do is just to sit down, admit we are lost, and prepare to be rescued! God rescues good men from danger while letting the wicked fall into it. (Proverbs 11:8 NLB) In situations of survival, one of the things they teach you is not to wander from where you find yoursel...