The Plumbline

Your words can be as satisfying as fruit, as pleasing as the food that fills your stomach. The tongue can speak words that bring life or death. Those who love to talk must be ready to accept what it brings. (Proverbs 18:20-21) Fruit can have all the right coloring, smell wonderful, but somehow it is just too tart or bitter on the inside. It is like the development of the fruit arrested and it never came to the place it was fully ripe - like when it is picked too quickly and artificially ripened to put on the shelves at the supermarket. Take a bit of the fruit and you will soon realize the bitterness lasts, even when you spit out the nastiness of the bite you took. It is like "having your teeth set on edge". Some of us don't taste "bitter"? In fact, depending upon the level of dietary iodine we may ingest, we might all sense "bitterness" a little differently. I wonder if this difference with how we "taste" the bitter we ingest in life is ...

I saw this post today and wanted to share it - there is a whole lot of truth in this one: "How people treat you is not who you are; it is who they are." (Curtis M. Lloyd) Scripture reminds us, "So then, whatever you desire that others would do to and for you, even so do also to and for them, for this is (sums up) the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 7:12) Mom and Dad always taught the 'golden rule' at our house - be the kind of person others will want to be around - treat them as you would want to be treated. Did this always ensure that I would never have to deal with a 'son-of-a-gun' personality on occasion? Absolutely not! It took a long time for me to realize that the way the 'other guy' was acting wasn't because of me, but that was a hard lesson for me to actually learn.  In fact, I used to bend over backwards to be or do what another wanted. I wasn't true to myself at all. I became who they wanted me to be - losing my identity in...