The Plumbline

We are all slaves to something in this life.  Too many people are slaves to their greed - finding themselves way over-extended when it comes to the way they spend, spend, spend.  To them, plastic has become the way of achieving a lifestyle they "think" they want - only to find themselves enslaved to a load of debt which seems all to hard to dig out from under.  Others are engaged in wrong-way relationships, dead-ending in disaster.  It wasn't because they didn't receive plenty of warning signs along the way prior to "committing" to the relationship, but they just acted out that old truth - love is blind.  Their emotions got the best of them and now they are bemoaning their choices, looking for a way out, and cringing beneath the load of guilt they feel over being duped by the other individual.  Still others are trying to find a way to soothe their guilty conscience because once again they are finding themselves mopping up after some wrong choice they made ...

We have been studying for a while about some of the obvious differences between the fool and the simpleton and the lackadaisical  way they live life vs. the wise and those who use the common sense God gave them.  The differences can be dramatic, or just plain obvious!  Yet, there are times when the differences aren't so obvious - when it looks like we are making wise decisions and acting in pretty honorable ways, only to discover the path we are on is really one marked with all manner of selfish intent!  The wise come to realize some of their decisions may not have been "founded" in the right stuff.  The difference between the wise and the fool or simpleton in those moments is what they do when they come to realize self has been at the center of their decisions. Trouble manages to find us out - exposing what it is which is at the core of our being.  We encounter trouble for a variety of reasons in life, but one of the surest ways to encounter trouble ...