The Plumbline

Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me. (Psalm 23:4) If there is one message that rings true in Psalm 23 it is that God is always with us. No matter what trouble comes, fear that emerges, anxious thoughts that grip us, or the deepest, darkest places that attempt to consume our peace, God is with us. The shepherd uses both the rod and the staff to direct us, keep us, and protect us. The staff to guide us. The rod to protect us. Sheep need both - the shepherd knows this very well. Fix your eyes on the shepherd, not the 'wolf' that comes to steal and destroy. We won't be overtaken by the 'wolf' because the shepherd knows he is there, already has a plan to deal with him, and is ever vigilant to protect us. When our eyes are on him, the 'wolf' is no longer our focus. God is bigger than our 'biggest' issue. Too many times, we embrace the 'issue'...

I must calm down and turn to God;   only he can rescue me.  He is my Rock, the only one who can save me.  He is my high place of safety, where no army can defeat me. (Psalm 62:1-2) We have talked many times about the protection of God, but I would like us to focus today on what our psalmist reminds us here: WE must calm down and WE must turn to God. When all is spinning like what seems to be 'out of control', we can never forget that God controls what we cannot see, hear, or even imagine with our finite minds. It is our responsibility to trust - plain and simple. Sometimes we need to be reminded to just settle down, refocus, and listen. To calm oneself down is an art form, especially when turmoil of all manner keeps coming your way. You might 'want' to calm down, but the things that keep happening just seem to take their toll on your emotions. You find yourself spiraling out of control faster than you thought you would, all because your emotions were perceived quicker t...

Think about what we have in Christ: the encouragement he has brought us, the comfort of his love, our sharing in his Spirit, and the mercy and kindness he has shown us. If you enjoy these blessings, then do what will make my joy complete: Agree with each other, and show your love for each other. Be united in your goals and in the way you think. (Philippians 2:1-2) What is it we have 'in Christ' that we didn't have without him in our lives? For one thing, we have been given more than just forgiveness as we might think of it. When we forgive someone, do we forget the offense? No, there is a lingering remembrance. With God, there is no remembrance of the sin. When I was in grade school, the teacher would use the chalkboard all day, erasing with those black erasers. It left a tell-tale white residue on the board. At the end of the day, I enjoyed 'cleaning' the board with the soft 'shammy-like' eraser that removed all that residue and made the board look like ne...

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart. (Francis of Assisi) People who work for evil make trouble, but those who plan for peace bring happiness. (Proverbs 12:20) What is your 'plan' moving forward? It doesn't really matter that you have made a mess of the plan up to this point - it matters what you will do moving forward. Our planning is important - God's plans are more so. What God plans can change the heart of a man - our plans merely change 'things' around us that may affect our heart, but rarely does it change our heart for good. We need God's plans worked out - especially when we have made a mess of the plans we imagined! Plan for peace - get your heart right with God - them move on. The more we turn our plans over to God, the more we may find those plans have been affecting our heart (our inner man) in some ways that have actually kept us from realizing all God has for us. Sometimes we need t...

Some people are just troublemakers. They are always thinking up some crooked plan and telling lies. They use secret signals to cheat people; they wink their eyes, shuffle their feet, and point a finger. They are always planning to do something bad. But they will be punished. Disaster will strike, and they will be destroyed. There will be no one to help them. (Proverbs 5:12-14) If you have ever had a troublemaker in your life, you know just how hard it can be to around them for any length of time. You just want to turn and run when you see them because you know nothing good is about to come of the encounter. Wisdom would suggest we avoid them entirely, but we all know it is impossible to never encounter them at all. So, what do we do when we encounter a troublemaker in our lives? If we want to learn how to deal with them, we need only look as far as Christ's example. Jesus was surrounded by members of the religious leadership, thinking they knew more than he did, always trying to fi...

He who has knowledge spares his words, and a man of understanding is of a calm spirit. (Proverbs 17:27) Have you ever had so much internal agitation that you found it hard to talk rationally or act responsibly? There is nothing our enemy likes more than for that type of agitation to take over within us. Confusion is a great tactic to keep us in a muddle and cause us to be paralyzed with fear. Worrying does us no good, but that is what confusion brings - worry upon worry, until we are either not able to take action, or worse yet, we take action that is impulsive. The consequences of both are alarmingly similar - we stumble around in our confusion and find ourselves feeling pretty helpless and sometimes even hopeless. Our passage reminds us that “a man of understanding is of a calm spirit.” How on earth can we enjoy a calm spirit when everything is coming at us at break-neck speed and in a disorderly manner? What some of us have yet to realize is that actually living with a calm mind re...

Fear is a powerful emotion that some say can actually paralyze you - putting you in total "stall mode" while the world moves on around you.  If you have ever experienced that heart-pounding, sweaty palms, shaky legs kind of fear, you know just how many scenarios run through your head making it almost impossible to exercise clear or rational thought at that moment.  Fear produces an anxiety response physically - it just isn't the emotional upheaval going on inside our heads.   When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. I trust God, so I am not afraid of what people can do to me! I praise God for his promise to me. (Psalm 56:3-4) Scripture comes complete with stories of men and women in positions of great peril, emotional upheaval, and even life-threatening circumstances of both their own and others doing.  We all struggle with similar emotions and the physical responses which come along with them.  We don't stand as uniquely "different" when it comes to the li...

Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness! The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. So what good is wealth—except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers! (Ecclesiastes 5:10-11) I don't think there is anyone who wants to look back on their life only to realize the majority of the activity they performed was merely to 'make money'. The average wage-earner in the United States holds about 12 jobs in their lifetime, spending about 4.5 years per job, meaning we work about fifty years or so. If all that work is without any rest, the body, mind, and soul of a man is taxed by the end! Too much rest makes for a different outcome - we might even be labeled as a little 'lazy' and 'foolish'. The balance comes somewhere in the middle, but it should never be to the detriment of our relationships - including our relationship with God! True happiness is kind of an elusive thing for ma...

C.S. Lewis reminds us, " God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. " I think we look a whole lot of places for happiness - from within relationships to the things we purchase. We look for peace but find circumstances and attitudes that don't really support it. How are we to find peace if it is so elusive? Romans 8:5-7 tells us, " Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. " Perhaps the only way we find true and lasting peace is to allow peace to actually enter into each of us by saying 'yes' to Jesus! The sinful nature wants to dominate us - to in...

O God, listen to my cry! Hear my prayer! From the ends of the earth, I will cry to you for help, for my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety, for you are my safe refuge, a fortress where my enemies cannot reach me. Let me live forever in your sanctuary, safe beneath the shelter of your wings! (Psalm 61:1-3) There will always be times when we feel a little overwhelmed. Following Jesus doesn’t ensure there will not be a deluge of problems on occasion that seem to almost close in on us. It could be argued that God expects us to call out when we begin to feel them closing in, but I’d like to propose that he wants our contact with him to be so deep and intimate that he can ‘hear our heart’ even before he hears our words. The heart can betray what we are feeling or sensing sometimes quicker than our words can express. I have felt overwhelming fear on occasion, unable to utter even one word, but then found God’s peace just settling in over me like a warm blanket on a...

You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever! (Psalm 30 11-12)  If we stop to consider what sin does to the emotions, physical body, and even our spirit, perhaps we'd describe it much as being in a state of great loss and mourning. It strips us of our joy, but it also strips us of our hope. We wallow in our downfall much as the mourner 'wallows' in the extreme sorrow over their loss. Mourning involves a deep ache for what was lost - there is an internal agony that often makes its way to the surface. Sin has a way of stripping us down - laying us bare, causing us to bemoan our losses, agonizing that we don't have a 'way back'. We might be incapable of finding our 'way back', but God has already set the 'way back' into motion - we just need to call out for his mercy. As some may...

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. (Romans 5:1-2) We don't 'get right' with God - we are 'made right' with him. This work is accomplished by faith, never by our works. All that was needed to make us right with God was done by Christ Jesus. One of the things we may miss in this passage is this 'place of undeserved privilege' we each enjoy as a result of Christ's finished work on the cross. We might think a person of 'privilege' enjoys extreme wealth, social standing, and easy access to things they want or need. We wouldn't be far off with this definition, except for that part about 'social standing'. Being a Christian doesn't always elevate us to the top...

 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7) I imagine one of the hardest things we can 'learn' in life is the act of trusting when you aren't too sure what is going on around or within you. Some of our worries and anxieties are because there are numerous external forces at work that we see, but may not fully understand. At others, our worries are much more 'covert' - we 'feel' them, but we don't have a clue why they are there. These can be a result of circumstances, but they can also be a result of some internal conflict that is putting our emotions through their paces. How does one get to the place of 'not worrying' when life seems to be creating chaos, or our emotions are in a muddle? If you are like ...

I come to you for protection, O Lord my God. Save me from my persecutors—rescue me! If you don’t, they will maul me like a lion, tearing me to pieces with no one to rescue me. (Psalm 7:1-2) We began to look at the power of a truly 'defensible position' yesterday - the best of all being 'in Christ'. As we examine the need for a defensible position, we might find there are a number of reasons we would cry out to God for a place of refuge. Perhaps one of the reasons we seek a refuge is because of the slander and gossip of others around us. We might not realize the damage of gossip and the destruction to the reputation whenever someone sets out to slander and individual. We could be on either side of that coin - the one being gossiped about, or the one engaging in the gossip. The first needs a defensible position - a place of protection and refuge; the latter needs a 'come to Jesus' meeting! David was not without his share of both. In fact, he had people who would ...

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.” “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!” (John 14:1-7) Trust is a learned thing - if it is violated enough, it can be harder and harder to trust the next time. Jesus gave his disciples absolutely no reason to mistrust him. He was always there, especially when they needed his help. He came in the middle of the storm, quieted the waters, settling their fears. He sto...

You have changed my sorrow into dancing. You have taken away my sackcloth and clothed me with joy. You wanted me to praise you and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever! (Psalm 30:11-12 ERV) Some days I just don't feel like dancing, how about you? There are just times when the weight of all that I am feeling 'plants my feet' in one spot and I just muddle through. The more I muddle in the muddle, the more weight I feel. If you have ever walked through a particularly muddy section of land, you would likely have noted how quickly the mud attaches itself to your shoes. Before long, those lightweight shoes begin to feel like lead boots! Sin is kind of like that - we muddle through it and wallow around in it long enough and we will find we get 'weighed down' by the 'attached dirt'. The more we try to move, the harder it becomes to actually take big steps in the right direction.  God's greatest joy is when one of his children actually look down...

It was Eisenhower who said, "We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it." How ironic is it that we pursue peace, yet find it amid the battle? Some believe peace comes in the absence of 'warfare' or 'turmoil', but let's challenge that belief a little today. God's peace is available at all times - peace with mankind may take a bit of work on all our parts. Inner peace is amazing but living at peace with one another is pretty doggone awesome, too! How does this type of peace come about? By listening to God! I will listen to God the Lord. He has ordered peace for those who worship him. Love and truth belong to God’s people; goodness and peace will be theirs. (Psalm 85:8-10) How do we listen? Isn't listening done with more than our ears? Some may not think so, but we listen with our eyes, hearts, and minds. We see and we respond. We 'feel' and we reach out. We think upon and we act. Listening requires we 'hear' employ a g...

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm. (Robert Louis Stevenson) I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we’ve been shown the mystery! (Colossians 2:2-4) Woven into a tapestry of love - not through human effort, but because God binds us together as 'interwoven members'. This should give us a sense of 'belonging' even when we don't feel like we 'belong' anywhere else. This should also give us a sense of being created for a purpose, not just to sit idly by as life passes us by. We are called to work together - not just the physical work some might think of, but that 'spiritual' and 'emotional' work of bei...

I know I distressed you greatly with my letter. Although I felt awful at the time, I don’t feel at all bad now that I see how it turned out. The letter upset you, but only for a while. Now I’m glad—not that you were upset, but that you were jarred into turning things around. You let the distress bring you to God, not drive you from him. The result was all gain, no loss. Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets. (2 Corinthians 7:8-10) Any great pain or sorrow that weighs us down and almost keeps us from moving is not meant to keep us down, it is meant to drive us to God. Elements of physical suffering, or some mental anguish might have us under its control right now. Some call this "trouble", while others use a more sophisticated term like "affliction" or "trib...

I am God, your God, who teaches you how to live right and well. I show you what to do, where to go. (Isaiah 48:17) It is in this same chapter of Isaiah that we get our saying, "No rest for the wicked". The exact reading is: "There is no peace," says God, "for the wicked." The nation of Israel, delivered from Egypt to enter into a great land of prosperity and promise, chose to walk away from the one thing God asked of them - undivided and unchallenged loyalty to him. In the end, they knew no 'peace' - for they chose to live as the wicked of the land. We make good choices right alongside some not so wise ones, don't we? We do it all the time - choosing 'when' to be obedient and 'when' to live as we want to in the moment. Choice will always be ours - what we do when presented with the 'options' around us is 'learned' - it doesn't always come naturally for us to choose wisely. God shows us what to do and where t...