The Plumbline

 "Salvation" is only gibberish to the wicked  because they've never looked it up in your dictionary.   Your mercies,  God , run into the billions;  following your guidelines, revive me.  My antagonists are too many to count,  but I don't swerve from the directions you gave.  (Psalm 119:155-157 The Message) In nursing, there are certain medications administered for the very purpose of acting as "antagonists" to some other medication in the body.  The purpose is to "bind" something of harm to your body, such as too much narcotic, an over-abundance of a particular electrolyte, or a blood-level of medication that is harmful at a particularly high level.  The antagonistic effect of the medication actually ends up saving your life!   Sometimes we view people and things in our lives who function as "antagonists" in a very negative sense.  I challenge you this morning to consider if perhaps the "challenging" thing ...

Take a good look at my trouble, and help me— I haven't forgotten your revelation.   Take my side and get me out of this;  give me back my life, just as you promised.  (Psalm 119:153-154 The Message) We probably have heard the say, "It is Trouble, with a capital T".  Trouble is different for everyone.  Some of us seem to "find it" without even looking.  Others seem to "make it" as though it were some natural outcome of everything we do.  Still others seem to do everything they can to "avoid it", regardless of the cost.   When I looked up the word "trouble", I came across the very first definition and stopped to ponder it a while.  Take a moment to think on this:  Trouble is to disturb the mental calm or contentment of; to worry ; bring distress ; or a gitate .  Hmmm....in the Hebrew language, we'd put a "Selah" after this so as to "stop and consider" what this says to us. First, when we...