The Plumbline

Cynical people are continually worried - finding it very hard to find anything at all positive in any of life's circumstances. They are also very determined that everyone else in life is after their own interest and have ulterior motives behind everything they do. Their belief that only selfishness motivates human actions significantly limits how they interact with others. Their disbelief in or minimizing of any selfless acts or disinterested points of view usually sets them at odds with others in life. I thought a cynic was perhaps just a nay-sayer - one who just opposed things because they had a genuinely "sour" disposition! Maybe it could be they were just people who had been "burnt" so many times they no longer believed good things to be possible in life. Regardless of their frame of mind at the moment, the cynic cannot see much good in life. It truly would be miserable to face life as a cynic because they have a hard time ever seeing life from the perspec...

Every now and again we just need a reminder to be grateful, don't we?  When I stop to consider some of the stuff others around me are dealing with, my "issues" pale in comparison.  When I stop to consider my "momentary afflictions", the life-long battles some face with disease make my aches and pains look like a vacation.  Sometimes we forget the principle of thanksgiving as the scriptures would teach:  Give thanks IN everything, not necessarily FOR everything.  We don't have to give thanks for the flat tire, but we can give thanks we have roadside service to get it changed! On your feet now—applaud  God !   Bring a gift of laughter,   sing yourselves into his presence.  Kn ow this: God is God, and God, God.  He made us; we didn’t make him.   We’re his people, his well-tended sheep.   Enter with the password: “Thank you!”   Make yourselves at home, talking praise.   Thank him. Worship him.   For God is sheer be...