The Plumbline

But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.   ( James 3:17-18   NLT ) Are you a peace-maker, or a peace-taker? That may be a tough question to answer truthfully, but it can open the doors to some pretty significant growth in your life either way! To realize one is on the end of the spectrum where there is more strife stirred up when you are present than there is peace and agreement may come as a hard truth to swallow, but it can also create a sense of "urgency" in us to see that things change in us so we are no longer that way. If you have ever been around someone who just shuts down the conversation and creativity of a group as soon as they begin to speak themselves, then you know how much this "pe...

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. ( James 1:19   NLT ) Do you know anybody who can go from "chill" to "overkill" in somewhere under 30 seconds? Uh oh...did I just hear someone say, "Yep, that's me"? You aren't alone, my friend - there are lots and lots of us, sometimes more than we want to admit, that can lose our cool quicker than ice melts on an Arizona sidewalk in summer! Most of the time, the challenge isn't in not reacting - it is in choosing what it is we will react to. Three concepts are outlined in our passage here, but before we explore these, let's look at something that gets overlooked - the introduction to these words. James has just spent some time speaking about how God blesses those who endure testing and temptation with something called patience. He adds to that thought the reminder it is "when" we are tempted, not "if...