The Plumbline

Have you ever fallen behind? Your peers are so far ahead of you that you can barely see their backs any longer and you have 'forever' still to go...what is your reaction? You could just stop, sit down on the side of the trail, and give up - it would be the easiest thing to do after all. You could call out to see if anyone would come back to help you out a little, pulling you, pushing you, and somehow getting you to move again. You could even just cheat a little by just not even covering that ground your peers have covered and just jump ahead to wherever they are, but what would you have missed in the journey? It is easier to fall behind than to catch up. It is easier to feel defeat than it is to experience elation over success at times, isn't it? The thing is that God doesn't want us to be defeated in our walk, or even 'falling behind' in any respect. He wants us to be strong, encouraged, built up, and moving on. To that end, he provides us with not only the 

Who can see into a man’s heart and know his thoughts? Only the spirit that dwells within the man. In the same way, the thoughts of God are known only by His Spirit.    You must know that  we have not received the spirit of this  rebellious and broken  world but the Spirit that comes from God, so that we may experience and comprehend the gifts that come from God.    We do not speak of these  gifts of God  in words shaped by human wisdom; we speak in words crafted by the Spirit because our collective judgment on spiritual matters is accessible to those who have the Spirit.    But a person who denies spiritual realities will not accept the things that come through the Spirit of God; they all sound like foolishness to him. He is incapable of grasping them because they are  disseminated,  discerned,  and valued  by the Spirit.    A person who walks by the Spirit examines everything , sizing it up and seeking out truth . But no one is able to examine or size up that  kind of  spiritual perso