The Plumbline

There are moments as I am reading through scripture when I have to ask, "What were they thinking?" It is though the actions someone took were clearly not right, but they chose them anyway. Sound familiar to anyone else besides me? Do you ever think God is maybe just a little comical in what he records in scripture? Sometimes you come across something you know is really not "comical", but when you see it, you cannot help yourself - you laugh! When I came across the portion of scripture which described a billy goat as a "solemn dignitary", I had to ask if God was actually being just a little sarcastic in that description! God nails it, though, because there are times when we put 'goats' in positions of power and forget who really 'owns' the barnyard! We get so focused on the one thing in our path that makes the most noise, or just simply elevates itself to some position 'over us' that we cannot see God is really still the one who co

Your eternal word, O  Lord ,   stands firm in heaven.  Your faithfulness extends to every generation, a s enduring as the earth you created.  Your regulations remain true to this day,  for everything serves your plans. (Psalm 119:89-91 NLT) If you have ever played that little game of birds and objects to be toppled known as Angry Birds, then you know just how frustrating it can be at times. There are various levels within the game that have challenged me more than a little - the exact "formula" for calculating just the right point an object must be struck in order to get it to topple is sometimes just a little more elusive than I would like to admit. Yet this game makes me think - so I enjoy it. The more I am challenged by a difficult level, the more I focus on finding the solution! In life, there are "difficult levels" to complete - hard solutions that seem to evade us for sometimes longer than we might want to admit. At each level of this game, the player is

I must admit - I like watching these shows where people have to go through extremes to stay alive and survive their "trek" in the wilderness somewhere. They get "dropped" in some remote location with very limited survival gear - one guy actually lives life without shoes and has been dropped in some pretty freezing places without any shoes and only wearing shorts!  I don't really want to be one of these individuals who has to survive in the wilderness with only a length of fishing line, a hook, and a knife.  I really like the comfort of my bed, a warm shower in the morning, and the ability to brush my teeth!  Worrying about what I will eat, where I will shelter from the elements, how to ward off the wild creatures, and the like is just not my cup of tea.  Yet, I find the journey they take and the skills they have developed to be amazingly interesting.  The ability to identify things growing in the wild, foraging for food, and even setting traps to obtain a littl

Rich:  Abundantly supplied with resources; of great value or worth.  Every now and again, I run across someone who will share a great desire to win the lottery.  They live with this eternal hope of being "rich" - thinking all their worries in life will somehow melt away when their "ship comes in".  The weekly purchase of those tiny tickets is what keeps them going.  As the jackpot grows, so do their dreams.  In fact, if you listen closely, they "plan" the expenditure of the massive funds as though they might actually win.  If you read the fine print on the lottery site or ticket, the "odds" of winning are something like 1 in 175 million!  Now, if I were to hold out for those kind of odds, I think I would live quite an impoverished life! God ’s blessing makes life rich;  nothing we do can improve on God.  (Proverbs 10:22 MSG) There are times in life when we get the idea of "blessing" all confused with what our bank account reflects,

Spend:  To use up, consume or exhaust.  The other night, I heard something in a movie I was watching which caught my attention.  The actress was being asked how she wanted to spend her life.  She made some mention of using the term "spend your life" as though life was a commodity of sorts.  In just that one fleeting moment in the movie, I began to take pause to consider the idea of "spending our life" and how we actually do this.  In fact, I began to see the idea of "using up" or "exhausting" our "resources" much quicker than we might actually imagine.  We treat life as though it has endless renewable resources, but I wonder if we ever realize the source of those resources?   Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.  (Matthew 6:33 MSG) As I considered this idea of "spending our lives" in some pursuit or another,