The Plumbline

I have caught a couple of shows recently where the point of the show is to showcase the tremendously awesome pools people build in their backyards or the tricked out recreational vehicles they take on their vacations.  The pools feature water slides, natural water features such as waterfalls, and even some "lazy rivers" for just drifting along on a raft or inner tube.  The RVs have granit counter tops, full-sized showers, and more flat screen TVs than you can shake a stick at!  These shows have appeal because of the "envy-factor" they create.  Isn't it part of human nature to hope to live the life everyone else looks at and says, "Wow!  I wish I lived like that?"  I have to admit, I am amazed at the neat things which are created - until I hear the price!  Some of these folks spend over a million dollars just for a backyard pool!  Now, don't get me wrong, but is this really something we want to be defined by? Blessed (happy, fortunate, prosperous...

Ever been somewhere, not dressed at your best, experiencing anything but your best hair day, and maybe not totally acting your normal "self", only to come face-to-face with someone you know?  How'd it make you feel?  Kind of self-conscious?  Or perhaps like you wanted to crawl under a rock?  We've all had those moments!  What did we fear the most in those circumstances?  Wasn't it that we knew perfectly well that people evaluate others by how they look and/or how they are "behaving" at that moment?  The truth is people evaluate people - don't they?  The danger is that we only see "in part" - most of what makes up an individual is actually on the inside, isn't it? Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the ...