The Plumbline

“Pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given—and you will receive even more. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.” (Mark 4:24-25) I remember being in the classroom as a kid, staring blankly at some object or view from the window, all the while daydreaming some big plan or fantasy in my mind. The teacher would be going on with some lesson in geometry, mathematics, or science, all while I was soaring through space in a rocket ship or sailing the blue seas in search of treasures. The imagination is a good thing when it helps us invent new things that help others, but it can be a distraction when it causes us to lose focus!  Christ used parables to teach the people because they could relate to those objects or tasks. Sowing seed was common. Lighting a lamp at sundown was everyday practice....

Be alert and think straight. Put all your hope in how kind God will be to you when Jesus Christ appears. Behave like obedient children . Don’t let your lives be controlled by your desires, as they used to be. Always live as God’s holy people should, because God is the one who chose you, and he is holy. That’s why the Scriptures say, “I am the holy God, and you must be holy too.” (I Peter 1:13-16 CEV) In medical assessment, a patient who is less alert than their baseline assessment had been at a previous point might be under the untoward influence of a sedative, or perhaps have suffered a life-altering event such as stroke or bleed into their brain. To be alert, one is to be fully awake and able to direct full attention toward something. If someone is awake, but drifts easily back to sleep, without being able to focus or concentrate on what you are asking them to do, we begin to look for causes of this "drift" in attentiveness and alertness. It is this "alertness...

Modern-day cell phones have those built-in 'public safety alerts'. Why? We want to avoid the harm associated with the warning or be on the look-out to help someone who is in danger themselves. The purpose of a warning is to give us sufficient notice to prepare or be 'alert'. Even when I take my car into the local auto shop to have them fill my tires with air and rotate them every 5000 miles or so, they check the tread and general condition of the tires. This simple practice is designed to alert me to the potential of uneven wear, possible sidewall damage from road hazards I did not recognize, or wearing tread that may result in the need for new tires. They are concerned about safety. They know I will come back when I recognize the need for new tires - sometimes even before I truthfully need them. I take their warnings seriously - because they are the experts! Why is it we don't take other warnings in our lives just as seriously? It isn't because they are...

How amazing are the deeds of the Lord! All who delight in him should ponder them. Everything he does reveals his glory and majesty. His righteousness never fails. (Psalm 111:2-3) All who delight in him should ponder his deeds. What does it mean to ponder? To consider something deeply and thoroughly - we get the word meditation from this concept of pondering. Meditation isn't sitting cross-legged and chanting - it is taking time out to just dig a little deeper into the object of your attention. If God is the object right now - you are pondering! "A season of suffering is a small assignment when compared to the reward. Rather than begrudge your problem, explore it. Ponder it. And most of all, use it. Use it to the glory of God." (Max Lucado) We may not want to admit it, but God can and does use every 'season' of our lives - good, mediocre, or really bad! Ponder these seasons - what is he doing, how are we responding, what might he be teaching us in that moment?...

Then God came and stood before him exactly as before, calling out, “Samuel! Samuel!” Samuel answered, “Speak. I’m your servant, ready to listen.” (I Samuel 3:10) Wisdom dictates we listen more than we speak - but I have to honestly tell you I don't always do well with that one requirement. Listening is an art - learned not because we really want to learn it, but because if we don't learn how to listen, we will eventually get life pretty much as we like it, but we might just be the only ones left in the picture once we do! I suspect there is much to this listening "art" which many of us have yet to perfect. In fact, learning this "art" of listening requires we not only learn how to "tune into" the voice we hear, but we learn to "recognize" the voice we are hearing. I think many of us hear those "voices" in our heads - hopefully not too many of them - but we don't always know which one is the one we should be listening to....

I have moments where I am so acutely aware of what is going on around me, I am pretty sure I don't miss much. Then there are lots of other times when I am not as acutely 'dialed-in', knowing I may miss something, but not really all that concerned about it. How is it we can be so acutely dialed-in at times and then be so 'out there' at others? It has to do with our thoughts, for sure, but it also has a lot to do with our hearts - where our emotions lead us, we often go without hesitation. I think this is why God doesn't just reveal his truths to us once and leave it at that. He knows we may not be as 'dialed-in' as we need to be to actually hear, see, or interpret truth each and every time. We might want to be, but honestly, our emotions just don't always point us in the right direction to see truth when it is revealed, much less use it! It could be the 'little things' in life we miss the most - simply because we 'gloss over' them or d...