The Plumbline

What brings you joy in life?  How is it that you experience joy?  There are many today who equate happiness with joy - if I am happy, then I will be joyful.  Joy comes when you have experienced a "deep delight" in something which you have found pleasurable.  Something exceptionally good or satisfying has been experienced and we find extreme pleasure in it - lasting, deep, and meaningful pleasure.  A silly joke makes us happy, while the experience of the birth of our firstborn may make us joyful.  One carries the idea of the emotional "response" to the situation, while the other describes the condition of the heart and soul as a result of what one has experienced.  Happiness is a little more fleeting than joy - with joy, there is a memory formed which goes a lot deeper than that of the thing which gave us a little bit of happy emotional "release". I’m overjoyed at your word, like someone who finds great treasure. (Psalm 119:162 CEB) To be overj...

There are times when we think we have everything under control, then control seems to just escape us like all those grains of sand we might try to hold so tightly in our hand, but which manage to find tiny cracks from which they can slip through.  Try as we might, the best planning can sometimes end up in the most chaotic mess!  When it does, what we do with the pieces which are falling through our fingers makes all the difference in the world.  As our psalmist finds out, the attacks may come and the enemy look pretty foreboding, but the focus we maintain in that moment will either get us safely through, or will become our undoing.  When we focus on the circumstance, we get overwhelmed by the size of the issue at hand.  When we focus on the one who rules our lives (Jesus), he overwhelms the circumstance!  Whatever we maintain in our focus will be the thing which appears to be the "biggest" or most important! Then I called on the Lord’s name. I sa...