The Plumbline

Attention, all! See the marvels of God! He plants flowers and trees all over the earth, Bans war from pole to pole, breaks all the weapons across his knee. “Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.” (Psalm 46:10) I know life gets hairy from time to time and the busy-ness of life just seems to consume us like a black hole, but when we take time to step out of the traffic for even a short while we could just be amazed at how much smoother the journey is when we have to step back into it! There is much to be said about taking time to rest and relax, but much more to be found in taking specific time in those times that is set aside specifically to spend a little time just meditating upon Jesus. There is more refreshing to be found in those times than any other - even when he may pinpoint a particular 'rough area' of your life that requires a little attention.  Whenever we step out of the traffic long enough to just ...

At times I expect God to do things a certain way just because I know he did them that way before. I forget that he is the God of Creation - meaning he is not 'locked into' one way of doing things. He doesn't have to do things he same way each time, but the principles of how he moves are generally pretty consistent. Do you ever expect God to "appear" or "move" one way (the way you imagine in your mind)? Do you expect him to "perform" in a certain manner (the plans you have so carefully calculated or devised that you want him to follow)? When he doesn't "appear" or "perform" as we imagined, how do we handle it? For some of us, we get mad at God for a while, or a little bit confused by his actions - because he did not "fit" our "mold" of how we thought he should act. The Pharisees probably had this same kind of "mental argument" with Jesus as he walked this earth - simply because he didn...

Ever take time to consider some of the 'four-letter' words you use on a daily basis? Maybe some of them aren't all that 'good' for us to be using, but there are others we may use that we haven't really taken time to consider their meaning. GIVE is a four-letter word that can mean we seek something that we desire to have in our possession to the idea of having some flexibility in a situation. STOP is a powerful four-letter word. There are 39 individual definitions of this one word in the dictionary! Did you have any idea? When we come up to one of these signs on our drive to work this morning, we will obligingly bring the vehicle to a halt, look all four directions, and then take our turn in making the next move we need to make along the way. That is the purpose of the sign! Ignore it and you could find yourself with a dent in your fender, a ticket in your wallet, and more than a little late to work! Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingl...

There is seldom a time when "going in circles" isn't a waste of time. I think that someone like a race car driver would be the exception. He accomplishes either the winning or the losing of the race while staying on that oval track - going around and around at a calculated pace to accomplish the goal. For most of us, going in circles is another story - we find that we accomplish very little in the course of our efforts. The people of Israel had been "going in circles" in the wilderness for years. They had shed more than a few tears of grief over their choice to doubt God's provision for them. Something I have seen over the years (even in my own life) is that tears don't make someone change! You cannot equate tears with repentance. We can shed real tears without any real sense for what we need to change or how to change. Then we turned around and went back into the wilderness following the route to the Red Sea, as God had instructed me. We worked our wa...