The Plumbline

  If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself.  You  might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. (Galatians 6:2) Maybe this passage should read, "WHEN someone falls..." It would probably read more accurately as we ALL fall from time to time and need restoration without criticism for having fallen. The 'fallen' fall - it is that simple. The 'not so simple' part is this business of 'forgivingly restoring the fallen'. How easy it is to be critical of those around us who are struggling to live an upright life.  The rest of the passage is pretty much the summary of why we need to reserve our criticisms - we are likely to need forgiveness before the day ends! Mom always used to tell me it takes one to know one - meaning we recognize those struggling with our same issues / faults because those faults bother us so much in ourselves. We dial-in on those same things in others that we seem to know we could...

“I am the world’s Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.” (John 8:12) If you have ever hit your toe on some object while stumbling around in the dark, you know how much pain a tiny 'mess-up' like that can result in. In some moment of "altered alertness" you came into full contact with that inanimate object - never intending to, but regardless of your intent, it happened. We "almost" avoided the contact - just a small margin of error - not a huge deviation from course - just a tiny margin resulted in such significant pain. Sometimes the "errors" we experience in life that cause us more than a little pain are not the result of  a "huge" margin of error, but "smaller margins" of error - we call them compromises. We often "stumble" where there is no light! The truth is: We NEED light! Nothing dispels darkness other than light. Jesus said he is the world'...