The Plumbline

There are times, seasons in life, when we just have to admit it is all 'new' to us. We haven't been that way before - it is uncharted territory for us. I haven't had any cardiac surgery, but my friend was facing another in a history of those types of surgeries, and he didn't know if it would be his last or just another in the list. While it would be 'uncharted territory' for me, it was old hat to him. I haven't been in a hurricane, but I have endured many a monsoon, haboob, and microburst capable of uprooting trees, toppling fences, and hurling large objects across roadways at your vehicle. We can all say we have had those moments where something comes as 'old hat' to us - familiar territory, for sure. As much as we may not like to admit it, when it is 'new territory' we are traversing, we might not feel all that comfortable, secure, or 'faith-filled'! We don't know what to expect, so we are a little fearful. These are natural...

How many of us can say we are "goal-directed" individuals?  If you have any bent toward being a Type-A personality, then you might just engage in this goal-setting more than you realize.  Too many of us rely upon the "checklists" we create as a means of keeping us "on task".  Why?  Mostly because our minds are too filled with "stuff" to keep on task without them!  Sometimes the hardest goals we have are the one God is after in our lives.  Why?  Simply because they are often revealed in the test or the trial (the challenges), not in the "lists".  In Genesis 12, Abraham is asked by God to pick up and leave his entire "known world" - his country, his home, and his family - in search of a country God would show him.  Most of us have lost the "pioneer" spirit quite some time ago, but whenever you set out in a direction which points to the "not known" or "not yet known", you are a course often establish...

I can see now,  God , that your decisions are right;  your testing has taught me what's true and right.   Oh, love me—and right now—hold me tight,  just the way you promised.   Now comfort me so I can live, really live;  your revelation is the tune I dance to.  (Psalm 119:75-77 The Message) It goes without saying that "hindsight" is often much better than "foresight".  If we could see how everything would turn out in the end, we might not take some of the steps we take.  If we had insight into the outcomes of some of our words and actions, we might speak up or volunteer more often.  The simple truth is that we don't know how things will end - - and this often keeps us from acting in the first place, or acting in "blindness". Hindsight is the recognition of the realities, possibilities, or requirements of a situation / decision AFTER it occurs.  It is this idea of hindsight that caused us to coin the phra...