The Plumbline

They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. (Mark 8:22-25) We don't know why Jesus made him walk out of town with him. Maybe it was so he would begin to trust Jesus a little by walking with him for a while; learning to depend on him to bring him safely to the place he needed to be. We don't know why the first application of mud didn't do the trick. Maybe it was because Jesus knew something about this man, or those who were looking on that day, which made him take that time in order to help others around him come to a greater place of trust and faith. We may not kn...

Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever. (Psalm 73:25-26) How's your health? If you are anything like me, you answer that one with 'fair to midland' - you aren't ailing really, but you have a few aches and pains that get you down from time to time. Physical health may fail, our bodies may grow weary, and our minds fatigue with age, but God's gift to us is that our 'spiritual heart' will never grow weak or weary. When the desire of our heart is God first and everything else after that, our hearts are going to be pretty 'healthy'. God's spiritual strength can abide with us even when our physical strength wanes. We might not be up to winning any hundred-yard dashes at our age, but one thing is for certain - we aren't going to succumb to the pressures of our enemy, either! We have God on our side and that ...

Let all who fear the Lord repeat: “His faithful love endures forever.” In my distress I prayed to the Lord, and the Lord answered me and set me free. The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me? (Psalm 118:4-6) The more we interact with people around us, the more we realize it is almost impossible to please everyone. There will always be someone in the group who thinks differently, opposing every move we make. What do we do when we face opposition? If you are like me, you get a little distressed by the resistance at times. You might want to just pull in like a snail inside its shell, but that doesn't solve the issue, does it? I have learned to take my distress to the only one who can 'de-stress' it - God. I bring the issue to him, but I also bring the 'players' in the issue - including me! There are times when my attitude is the one needing adjustment, while it is the attitude of others that needs it at others. Who am I to judge whi...

I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! The Sovereign Lord is my strength! He makes me as surefooted as a deer, able to tread upon the heights. (Habakkuk 3:18-19) I have observed the deer upon the mountain sides, almost traversing the narrowest of trails with the greatest of ease. They seem to have 'suction cups' upon their feet, holding them upright while ascending very treacherous paths. Have you ever wanted to be just like the deer? Treading on paths that seem impassable, easing your way upward until you reach the top, not even concerned about the narrowness of the path you are on? We can 'tread' this narrow path with 'surefooted ease' when Jesus is at the center of our lives. To be surefooted as a deer means we are able to stand firm, with a strength that defies the pressures put upon us, to actually know where to go and when to move in that direction. It also means we will know what to do, and when to do it - never really q...

There are a couple forms of strength that we use to 'get by' in life. One is this thing we call physical strength. It is the 'brute strength' we use to pick up a heavy object or move a stalled car. It is technically the ability exert physical force upon an object. There is also mental strength - the thing we use to overcome pain and push a bit further when all we want to do is give up on that five-mile run. If allows us to be productive throughout our day and to be more efficient. It is how we get things done. There is emotional strength, which some clearly lack, while others seem to have it all together all of the time. Sometimes we struggle to make it through a day because we are a basket case, while at others we can muddle through just fine. The type of strength we all need but may not have right now is this thing we refer to as spiritual strength. It is the God-given strength that goes beyond physical, mental, or emotional strength.  I pray that from his glorious, u...

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...

God makes his people strong. God gives his people peace. (Psalm 29:11) Strength is definitely something we strive for, hold onto for dear life, and which often seems to evade us in the moments we need it most. Brute force by which we can do some things is not always the right kind of strength, is it? We probably have all passed around a jar of some condiment or pickles at one time or another, each taking turns trying to get the lid undone so we might enjoy what is inside. It goes from person to person, until someone in their wisdom takes a tact of hitting the lid ever so squarely on the side of the sink, allowing the seal to be broken, then gingerly uncaps the jar. What most of us did was rely upon our physical strength, but what the last one did was to rely upon their wisdom to figure out the solution to the problem! We have both mental and physical strength - both sometimes evading us more than we'd desire to admit! There is another type of strength which sometimes evades us...

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...

Give it everything you have, heart and soul. Make sure you carry out The Revelation that Moses commanded you, every bit of it. Don’t get off track, either left or right, so as to make sure you get to where you’re going. And don’t for a minute let this Book of The Revelation be out of mind. Ponder and meditate on it day and night, making sure you practice everything written in it. Then you’ll get where you’re going; then you’ll succeed. Haven’t I commanded you? Strength! Courage! Don’t be timid; don’t get discouraged. God, your God, is with you every step you take. (Joshua 1:9) As we contemplate these words spoken to Joshua after the death of Moses, I want to focus on just a couple of things today. The instructions to never let God's Word be out of mind seem mighty important to me - God emphasized this a couple of times in one conversation! Anyone ever get 'off track' in life? I don't think I have ADHD, but I can be headed out to the shop to do one project, see somethin...

I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains? No, my strength comes from God, who made heaven, and earth, and mountains. (Psalm 121:1-2) Look at the mountains and catch a little glimpse of just how majestic God's care must be - boulders balancing precariously on each other, one right after the other - standing there for years on end without any perceptible movement at all. The Arizona desert has many areas like this and each pass I make through those areas on various day trips makes me just pause a bit to consider the wonder of God. One tiny stone holds all the weight of those huge boulders - making it impossible for them to topple. The 'strength' of the mountain is really not in the massive stones, but in the tiny ones that are lodge into the wedges that hold those bigger ones in place! We see the massive and think the strength must be there, but in God's way of doing things, it is oftentimes the littlest things that bring the greatest strength into...

Albert Einstein was known for his amazing mind. Do you know he published over 300 scientific papers, had his PhD by the age of 30, and actually won the Nobel Prize in physics at the age of 42? As accomplished as he was in his field of study, do you know one of the most memorable things he said is repeated time and time again, maybe not verbatim, but pretty doggone close. "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." Do you know how many mistakes a scientist has to make before he finds the proof of his theory? Too many to count! Do you know how many mistakes I have made along the way, attempting to live out this Christian walk with grace and stamina? Too many to count! How about you? Too many to count?  Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven’t stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you’ll live well...

What is your spirit like? You know what part of you I am referring to, don't you? It is that part in you that animates you, gives you life, drives you onward, and keeps you centered in tough times. If you cannot answer that question truthfully then chances are that you are living a rather haphazard life. You are just willing to be pushed hither and yon, just 'existing', but not really 'living'. The spirit is not only what some refer to as the seat of your emotions - but it is most importantly the part of you that God would refer to as giving you 'character'. It is what makes you stand out and stand strong. You see, God did not give us a cowardly spirit but a powerful, loving, and disciplined spirit.  ( 2 Timothy 1:7 ) We are not the cowardly lion of the Oz type. We are not whimpering, timid creatures with no backbone. That is not how God made us. He made us to stand strong, powerful in all ways, able to resist every force that comes against us - IN HIM....

Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own. (Henry Ward Beecher) I pose the question today of who specifically it is that you are carrying? Are you carrying yourself, concerned only with your own reputation, focused merely on what you find you will obtain from the 'greatness' you are portraying? Or are you carrying others, sometimes without number, into that place of greatness, not on your coat-tails, but in the places of your heart and soul that truly help get them from where they are to where you imagine they can be? We might think we need to develop more strength for the battle, but it could be we just need to come alongside someone so that we both make it through the battle together! No king succeeds with a big army alone, no warrior wins b...

Back in the day, there was this little contraption you'd suspend from the door jam that allowed the infant to bounce happily up and down. Suspended in the enclosed seat, the infant could test out their legs a little and develop some strength in them. These simple devices were eventually replaced with walkers with four wheels, then these walk behind toys, and even more complex contraptions over the years, but the idea is all the same - to help the child develop their strength and balance. God gives us a whole lot of things in life to help us develop strength and balance, but none as lasting and true as his Word! We can hang onto his Word like nothing else - it never fails because it is backed by his oversight and careful attention to each detail contained within it!  Remember what you said to me, your servant—I hang on to these words for dear life! These words hold me up in bad times; yes, your promises rejuvenate me. (Psalm 119:49-50 MSG) His words have a unique way of reju...

Where does a warrior find strength? I watched a show this weekend about the great warrior chiefs of various American Indian tribes as they were being asked to sign treaties to no longer attack the white settlers. The thing that struck me was not just that they were fighting for their land, but for their way of life - they valued their beliefs, customs, and traditions. These included how they viewed and treated the land and the animals inhabiting that land. They were willing to fight for them. The warrior has a different kind of 'heart' and 'mindset'. The warrior knows what he believes, stands upon those beliefs even when pushed to give up on them, and trusts those beliefs because he trusts what is behind those beliefs! And don't for a minute let this Book of The Revelation be out of mind. Ponder and meditate on it day and night, making sure you practice everything written in it. Then you'll get where you're going; then you'll succeed. Haven't I comma...

David, as King of Israel, was in heated battle with the Edomites in the Valley of Salt - not exactly a lush place to be nor the top of someone's bucket list to visit.  The Edomites were descendants of Esau, one of the sons of Jacob.  Esau is probably best known in scripture as the son who sold his birthright for a pot of stew (Genesis 25) - his hunger outweighing his solid thinking on that one.  As the firstborn of Jacob, he had the full right to the inheritance of his father (a double portion as it is referred to in scripture).  In a time of weakness, hungry and weary by what life had dealt him, he "sold out" to his twin brother. I wonder how many times we 'sell out' in times of hunger, weariness, or worry? 16-17  And me? I'm singing your prowess, shouting at cockcrow your largesse,    For you've been a safe place for me, a good place to hide.  Strong God, I'm watching you do it, I can always count on you—God, my depe...

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. (Lao Tzu) Tzu really described what it is like to come to the revelation of how deeply we are loved by God and then in turn, we begin to draw strength way beyond whatever is resident within us - building and growing until we are able to overcome obstacles that once stood squarely in our way. To be deeply loved by God and to realize even a tenth of what that love is like is to begin the journey of walking with a strength not your own. We will never fully comprehend the love of God in this lifetime, but we have an eternity to enjoy it! 15 Every family in heaven and on earth gets its true name from him. 16 I ask the Father with his great glory to give you the power to be strong in your spirits. He will give you that strength through his Spirit. 17 I pray that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. I pray that your life will be strong in love and be built on love. 18 And I pr...

Some people refuse to bend when someone corrects them. Eventually they will break, and there will be no one to repair the damage.   (Proverbs 29:1 ERV) "You get tragedy where the tree, instead of bending, breaks."  (Ludwig Wittgenstein) We come across those from time to time who are just "un-bendable". They refuse any advice to do something a different way, determining their way is best of all, despite their lack of progress or inefficiencies. When we face these individuals, what is our reaction to their determination to "not bend"? It may be that we dig in our heels a little bit harder and try to make the point a little louder or with more determination ourselves. It could also be that we shake our heads, turn away, and just leave them to their own self-directed course. Either way, we do little to influence their unyielding determination. What they may ultimately require is the touch of God's hand in their lives, bringing such a "storm"...

I feel weaker and weaker as I wait for you to save me.    But I put my trust in your word. (Psalm 119:81 ERV) Have you ever just wondered why God makes us wait for something? Why is it the thing we so desperately desire or "require" seems to take so long to come to fruition in our lives? We don't always understand God's timing, nor do we appreciate it fully! We think, "You are all-powerful, God, so why don't you just do this right now?" We want to understand what he is waiting for - and we may be surprised it is for us to become just a little weaker. If God gave us everything at our strongest and most determined part of our lives, do you think we'd learn to trust him? Probably not! As we become weaker and weaker, there is something that happens - we begin to lean into God. Don't believe me? Think of the last time you were really "desperate" for God to step in and do something in your life. The more your desperation grew, the weaker...

Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever. ( Psalm 73:25-26   NLT ) Strength can be measured in many different ways. There are entire agencies dedicated to looking at the strength of vehicles to withstand the impact of crushing collisions and terrifying roll-over accidents. The trash bag manufacturers all get in on the development of the most "expandable" bag that will withstand the load of our daily household discard. Football players vie for the media spotlight exhibiting their strength on the field as they faced tremendous opposing force. We even see toilet paper companies jumping on the band-wagon to declare their product strong, while able to provide "cushiony comfort". Some of the most profound examples of strength I have observed are not always found in the places or things we might have expected, though! Sometimes th...