The Plumbline

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. (Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT) I have heard it said that "if you don't change direction, you may end up where you are headed." (Lao Tzu) The direction one assumes is the direction one will head. It is a mystery to me why some bemoan the outcome they get when they were headed in that direction all the time. It isn't that they didn't take notice of their course. They just didn't seem to change direction when they realized they weren't on the right course! If we were to be honest here, we have all chosen a wrong direction or two in life, not heeding the warnings along the way, depending more on our 'understanding' than seeking God's wisdom. The determination of course was entirely ours. The outcome produced wasn't great. The moments getting from here to there were riddled with issues. Yet we chose to '...

Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. (Colossians 3:16 NLT) Alexis Carrel reminds us, "All of us, at certain moments of our lives, need to take advice and to receive help from other people." The message of Christ, his goodness and his grace, needs to fill all of our lives, not just the Sunday-parts! Wisdom or counsel is only as trustworthy as the source of such wisdom. When we are teaching one another with the wisdom Christ gives us in our daily study of his Word and the time we spend alone with him, we are truly connecting each other to the wisdom that will guide and protect each other. Teach and counsel - two very specific actions that have a bit of a different meaning. When we teach someone, we are showing them or instructing them in how something is to be done. When we counsel one another, we are actually giving w...

Avoiding a fight is a mark of honor; only fools insist on quarreling. (Proverbs 20:3 NLT) There might just be a few more fools in this world than there are wise at the moment. It seems everyone wants to quarrel about anything they don't like or agree with, doesn't it? The wise will do anything short of sin to avoid he quarrel, though. Why? It brings out things that never should be voiced, and it creates a set of circumstances that allow a 'build up' of things that should never be done. The fool speaks his mind without thought as to how the message will be received. He isn't concerned about the ones hearing it - he just insists on voicing it. The wise think first about who will hear their message and how it will affect those who do hear it. Perhaps the question we need to be asking is how we can avoid a quarrel when all around us there seem to be quarrelers. Choosing our words wisely is the beginning of wisdom in relating one to another. When we match this with ch...

If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him. (James 1:5 AMP) Who is it that gives? God himself. Who is it who asks? Us. What do we ask for? Everything we know or imagine we will need. When do we ask? Usually when we need something. What do we neglect to ask for? Wisdom! Who is wisdom? Jesus. When we ask for wisdom, we are asking for Jesus to become more real to us in the moment, bringing clarity to our situation, and giving us insight we wouldn't have otherwise. It isn't that we are praying for more of Jesus - we already have all of him. We are praying for more evidence of him in our lives. Let him ask - those words are the crux of the issue. We have not because we ask not (James 4:2). We need to ask for wisdom in life's moments because we don't possess all the wisdom to navigate through them wisely 100% of the time. Sometimes we act ...

For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people. And we are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed. He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds. (Titus 2:11-14 NLT) Instruction is given because there is benefit in following it. As I came through High School, they offered several courses that were designed to do more than offer 'academic achievement'. Home Economics taught us to sew simple garments and make appetizing meals. Typing classes prepared us for career choices that utilized the skill, making us more proficient at recording things on those things called typewriters. Driver's Education prepared us for the road, makin...

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me." (John 14:1 NLT) While none of us wants to admit it, we don't always trust in the Lord with our full heart - mind, will, and emotions. We may get our mind to 'say' we are trusting him, but our emotions are all over the board when facing whatever it is that is giving us cause for anxiety or 'stress' in life. The will to trust is not always there, is it? We 'want' to trust, but we somehow hold out on fully trusting him with the situation as evidenced by our continual interference in whatever it is we are trusting him to do on our behalf. Trusting God is indeed harder than we may think, requires more fortitude than our willpower can muster, and gets overridden by all the emotions our hormones can produce at any given moment. Trust is more than a mindset, but it is good that we set our minds on him and his will for our lives. It is more than bringing our emotions under control, but it ...

A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. (Proverbs 22:3) Prudent - one who takes the time and makes the effort toward future outcomes. Frances of Assisi reminded us: "We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh. Rather, we must be simple, humble and pure." The future outcomes will be much different when we aren't making choices that merely please our fleshly desires. A humble heart, one that desires purity, will seek God's direction in daily choices - not just the big ones. The Greek historian Thucydides said, "Few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought." The 'issue' of our day is defined by the forethought we have put into it, isn't it? Plan well, with God's direction guiding us, and our day's 'issue' will be much more fruitful than it would if we just 'flew by the seat of our p...

Fools have no interest in understanding; they only want to air their own opinions. (Proverbs 18:2) If you have ever been around some individuals who seem to only care about their own opinion, or how they see the situation at the exclusion of how anyone else sees it, you are likely listening to someone who has no real interest in understanding. As you can see from our passage, scripture calls them fools. It is indeed foolish to not listen to anyone else's opinion or advice, for a great many things can be learned when we stop to see things from another's perspective. God doesn't want us to be the fool, nor does he want us to submit to the foolish way of thinking that some may have adopted. He does want us to consult him in all matters and to consider his wisdom as found in the Word of God when we don't have a clear understanding of a situation. Lest we be 'played the fool', we need to see things as he sees them. Our own perspective may not always be from a place o...

You may think everything you do is right, but the Lord judges your motives. Ask the Lord to bless your plans, and you will be successful in carrying them out. (Proverbs 16:2-3) I have made plans, only to have them fall flat at the last moment. You have likely planned something, then been a little disappointed with the outcome, as well. The more we 'plan', the more we need to run those plans through the Holy Ghost filter. The Lord doesn't always want us to go in the direction we are headed, even when those plans seem pretty 'legit' on the surface. Sometimes he has something better for us, or safer. We need to trust him to expose any impure motives that might be directing us toward something, especially when our spiritual, emotional, or physical safety may be concerned! It isn't enough to just ask God to bless our plans, though. This passage makes it sound a bit like we can just throw them out there, ask God to put his stamp of approval on them, and then trudge on...

Nothing reflects so much honor on a workman as a trial of his work and its endurance of it. So it is with God. It honors Him when His saints preserve their integrity. (Charles Spurgeon) Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to others. (Proverbs 12:15) An honorable workman - can any of us hope to be more than this? We each have a set mission in mind with each new day. We formulate our plans, ask God to take them into his control, blessing them as he does, and we set out. Fools don't ask God's direction, nor do they give him control of their mission. They believe they know the way, even though they have never traveled it before! The wise preserve their integrity by asking for his wisdom BEFORE they launch out on their day's journey. It would be foolish to just get in the car, knowing the general direction of North Carolina from Arizona is more or less east, then just drive without any knowledge of the direction certain roadways or highways would take us. In...

The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can’t receive the gifts of God’s Spirit. There’s no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit—God’s Spirit and our spirits in open communion. Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God’s Spirit is doing, and can’t be judged by unspiritual critics. Isaiah’s question, “Is there anyone around who knows God’s Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?” has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ’s Spirit. (I Corinthians 2:14) There is no capacity for our 'unsaved' man to take in, accept, or use the gifts of God's Spirit. By 'unsaved' I mean the part of us designed for God's Spirit to dwell but is empty because we have not said 'YES' to Jesus. Once we invite Jesus to enter into our lives, forgiving us of our sins, and giving us new life in him, we are open to receiving his Spirit. With his Spirit comes all manner of 'open communion' with God...

But wisdom is shown to be right by the lives of those who follow it. (Luke 7:35) So pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them. (Luke 8:18) We must be willing to listen with a heart that is open. Closed hearts may hear, but they seldom receive what they are hearing. They reject it or ignore it. A wise person didn't become wise by accident. It didn't happen by osmosis. They paid attention, considered what they heard, tested it to see if it was true, and then they acted upon the truth. A listening heart is willing to pay the price to truly 'listen'. We aren't to embrace everything we hear, but when God speaks, he will make truth clear. The enemy of our souls won't make his lies clear, but that won't stop some from embracing them lock, stock, and barrel. Wisdom affects our lives. We begin to behave diff...

Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it—the Lord is His name, ‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and tell you [and even show you] great and mighty things, [things which have been confined and hidden], which you do not know and understand and cannot distinguish.’ (Jeremiah 33:2-3) Consider for a moment that the one who formed this earth with the purpose of establishing it would actually reveal to us things that have been hard to understand - things hidden from the naked eye. This is what he promises - to reveal what we don't know, find difficult to understand, and have a hard time distinguishing. That might explain how we can know when the enemy of our souls is trying to pull a fast one on us! We only need to call upon him in order to be able to see clearly what Satan would have us never see in the first place! Call - I will answer. Seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it? Yet, we find ourselves muddling around in all manner of murky situat...

Wise words will win you a good meal, but treacherous people have an appetite for violence. Those who control their tongue will have a long life; opening your mouth can ruin everything. (Proverbs 13:2-3) Our words actually produce a harvest of goodness and grace, or they create one of bitter weeds and hurtful briars. A weed chokes out all the good growth around it. A briar pricks at whatever it contacts, causing unbearable irritation. What do our words produce?  Good people enjoy the positive results of their words because they don't create chaos, discord, or mistrust in those who hear their words. Words are meant to be heard - once spoken, they cannot be unheard. We might want to 'take back' what we have said, but a seed sown is not able to be retrieved. The control of the tongue is more than learning a 'cultured' manner of speech. It is being able to size up a situation, read the moment, hear the Holy Spirit urging, and then speak when the moment and conditions are...

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. (Charles Spurgeon) Anyone who rebukes a mocker will get an insult in return. Anyone who corrects the wicked will get hurt. So don’t bother correcting mockers; they will only hate you. But correct the wise, and they will love you. Instruct the wise, and they will be even wiser. Teach the righteous, and they will learn even more. (Proverbs 9:7-9) We have many responses to a rebuke, don't we? Some of us will scoff and say you are wrong about what you think or say about us. Others will argue vehemently that you have made wrong decisions yourself, so how could you judge their actions as wrong? Some will find any rebuke as belittling, cowering as a child scorned, afraid of what others will think should they find out whatever it ...

 My child, don’t lose sight of common sense and discernment. Hang on to them for they will refresh your soul. They are like jewels on a necklace. (Proverbs 3:21-22) So many times, we count on something other than common sense to get us out of a sticky place. We got ourselves there because we didn't use common sense in the first place! Discernment is just a fancy word that describes the ability to see good from bad and then make the best choice. When we don't use either of these helpers God gave to us, we find ourselves in a muddle. God's purpose in giving us these "tools" was that we'd actually use them. We aren't acting "independent" of God when we use discernment. We are using the good sense he gave us to "interpret" the moment. Yes, we might shoot up a quick prayer asking God to give us wisdom, but we can begin by listening to our conscience. It tends to niggle us a bit when common sense tells us something is not right for us. Perhap...

Anyone who rebukes a mocker will get an insult in return. Anyone who corrects the wicked will get hurt. So don’t bother correcting mockers; they will only hate you. But correct the wise, and they will love you. (Proverbs 9:7-9) Men have many responses to rebuke, don't they? Some will scoff and say you are wrong about them. Others will argue vehemently that you have made wrong decisions yourself, so how could you possibly judge their actions as wrong. Still some will find any rebuke as belittling, cowering as a child scorned, afraid of what others will think should they find out what they have 'done wrong'. When a child of God is rebuked, it is a definite sign they are loved too much to be allowed to continue in their folly.  We may not judge one another - it isn't our place to act as 'judge', but God does ask us to look out for the welfare of one another. We aren't just to turn a blind eye to another's wrong actions. As much as is possible, we must ge...

Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life. (James 1:12) A little earlier in this chapter, we are told that 'if we don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father' and perhaps this is the best advice we could have when it relates to facing 'testing challenges' in life. There are far more times we face those challenges without a clear plan on how to 'handle' the challenge. We want to make it through unscathed, but we know that a whole bunch of stuff is about to be unleashed, and we are in for a whopper of a 'beat down' if we don't get some clarity quickly. At that moment, we can meet it head-on, but to do so without God's perspective on the matter would be sheer foolishness. The testing challenge may be what reveals to us just how deep our loyalty is to God. It is where the rubber meets the road in our faith walk,...

Some people like to do things their own way, and they get upset when people give them advice. Fools don’t want to learn from others. They only want to tell their own ideas. (Proverbs 18:1-2) Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. (Charles Spurgeon) The right use of knowledge - have you given that idea much thought in your lifetime? I have possessed some knowledge on occasion, never really sharing it, holding onto that knowledge because I never felt it an appropriate time to share it. We probably all have done that, but to really consider if there is a 'right use' for the knowledge we have been given is always an act of wisdom. Not all knowledge is something to be 'broadcast' or 'touted'. Sometimes it is meant to be held close to the heart, prayed over, and then release...

“Fools die because they refuse to follow wisdom. They are content to follow their foolish ways, and that will destroy them. But those who listen to me will live in safety and comfort. They will have nothing to fear.” (Proverbs 1:32-33) The old song, "Fools rush in", admits that some can be so blinded by something or someone, all reasonable thought flies out the door. One of the lines in the song actually says, "Though I see the danger there, if there's a chance for me, then I don't care..." It goes without saying that we rush into danger more times than not simply because we failed to exercise wisdom in those moments. How can we get to the place where we 'don't rush in'? We learn to listen to God's voice! God-given wisdom far exceeds human wisdom, but somehow, we think it is okay to just trudge right on into those moments we will come to regret later on. We refuse to listen to his wisdom and find ourselves treading on thin ice. Another line f...