The Plumbline

I had the opportunity this week to read through the account of God delivering the Israelites from their Egyptian overlords and what happened after their deliverance. One thing caught my attention quickly - how much they complained about what God was doing. They complained as they faced the Red Sea. They launched another complaint when they came across the bitter waters in the region of Marah. Even after God performed miracles to redeem them from their captors and take care of their basic need for potable water, they still found reason to complain when their bellies were empty! I don't know about you, but when God does something 'big' in my life, it makes me sit up and take notice. When he does something 'small' in my life, I might miss it until I see a bunch of 'small' things mount up to a 'big' thing, but I eventually find the opportunity to acknowledge what he has done. God isn't always going to work in the 'big' ways in our lives, but

Many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen. But some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council together. “What are we going to do?” they asked each other. “This man certainly performs many miraculous signs. If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him. Then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation.” Caiaphas, who was high priest at that time, said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about! You don’t realize that it’s better for you that one man should die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed.” (John 11:45-50) A couple of things really stood out to me after reading the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus came out of the grave, after being dead a good couple of days, wrapped completely in grave clothes (hands and feet bound, face wrapped in a headcloth). There before the crowds sto

Out of difficulties grow miracles. (Jean de la Bruyere) Miracles still happen, but when we don't find ourselves on the receiving end of a miracle, how do we respond? There will be times when we celebrate nonetheless - because we know God is still in control of the circumstances. There may also be times when we begin to realize we have hardened our hearts toward God because we didn't receive the miracle we sought. At others, we may see something that resembles a miracle and walk away totally unaffected by it. How can there be so many responses to God's presence in the midst of his people? I think it all comes down to the condition of the heart. The more we are hardened to the grace and love of God, the less likely we will be to recognize his presence in the small or large miracles we observe all around us. So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh. They did exactly as the Lord had commanded them. Aaron threw the stick down in front of Pharaoh and his officials. It turned into a sna

T.D. Jakes described his "mistakes" as the framework for his life's greatest miracles. I'd have to agree on that one, for all of life's mistakes are just missteps - opportunities to have done one thing, but choosing instead to do another. It might take some "redoing" of the steps, but mistakes can actually become the ground upon which God does his greatest work of growing us. We may not see mistakes in quite the same way at times - simply because we get down on ourselves and discount the value of these missed steps. It might not be until God actually begins to recreate the steps we had taken that we see the moment we took that wrong step. That moment in time is not what God brings to our memory so he can beat us up about those mistakes, but he does so in order to help us avoid that same trap the next time. The Lord always keeps his promises; he is gracious in all he does. The Lord helps the fallen and lifts those bent beneath their loads.  The eyes of