The Plumbline

The Lord is not being slow in doing what he promised—the way some people understand slowness. But God is being patient with you. He doesn’t want anyone to be lost. He wants everyone to change their ways and stop sinning. (2 Peter 3:9) Is anyone else grateful for God's patience? I know I am! If he held every sin against me, even those committed AFTER I said yes to him, I'd be in a totally miserable place! How about you? Just because you said 'yes' to Jesus doesn't mean you stopped dealing with sin's desires and pulls in your life. In fact, like me, you probably have given in to some of those temptations on occasion. Just like me, you need God's patience and I sure hope you are as grateful for it as I am! On another note, when God delays his answer to us, how do we take that delay? If you are anything like me, you sometimes question if God even heard your cry for help, or request for something to be done in your life. Maybe you went ahead and did whatever it w...

The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name. (Psalm 23:1-3) We might equate this psalm with funerals, but I tend to equate it with normal, everyday life. Why? Read it again and you will see it speaks of provision, protection, and passages - something 'dead people' no longer require! As the Lord 'shepherds' our lives, we have all that we need - nothing is outside of his provision - all good things come from his hand. All that we need - nothing that is needed lacking, but maybe not every 'want' met. I know I have said this before, but there is a huge difference sometimes between what I need and what I want. I want the chocolate bar - I need the piece of fruit. I want the shiny new truck - I need reliable, practical transportation. Need and want are sometimes a bit hard for us to differentiate, but when God i...

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9) Are you challenged in the area of your thoughts? Things you'd like to forget just keep resurfacing. Things you need desperately to remember keep slipping away. Things you never thought you'd ever be mulling over plaguing you time and time again. This is a very real battle - our thought life can be a bit of a muddle at times, especially in times of stress, fatigue, or boredom. If your thoughts were to be displayed on a big screen, what would people see? Anxiety, depression, hurt feelings, or fear of the unknown? Maybe a lability of faith - trusting God fully one day, then venturing into the areas of taking things on yourself the next? God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Rather than struggling repeated...

I’ll make a list of God’s gracious dealings, all the things God has done that need praising, All the generous bounties of God, his great goodness to the family of Israel— Compassion lavished, love extravagant. He said, “Without question these are my people, children who would never betray me.” So he became their Savior. In all their troubles, he was troubled, too. He didn’t send someone else to help them. He did it himself, in person. Out of his own love and pity he redeemed them. He rescued them and carried them along for a long, long time. (Isaiah 63:7-9) And carried them... Those words speak volumes about the love of God - his grace and goodness going far and beyond what any of us deserve or even imagine we have need of in our lives. I have made a mental list of God's gracious dealings in my life, and I now have lost track of where he started and where he ended. Those gracious dealings are too innumerable for my finite memory to hold onto, but I can recall many and am so gratef...

O my soul, bless God. From head to toe, I’ll bless his holy name! O my soul, bless God, don’t forget a single blessing! These are the opening words to Psalm 103 - a song of celebration and remembrance. I recall a trip my BFF and I took where we parked in a large parking structure. Painted on the walls was the simple word "Remember" - a reminder to remember your parking space location! Now, that is ingenious in my estimation. How many of us park in those large structures and remember we are somewhere down one of those aisles on the third floor, but is it the level going up, or the one going down? In this day of cell phones and instant photos, I snap a quick picture of the car space number (if it has one) and the pillar identifier. This gives me a reference point to actually find my way back again. There are a lot of things to 'remember' in life, but there are just some things we should spend a little more time 'remembering' and 'celebrating' a little mo...