The Plumbline

A friend posted a kind of special thought this week and I just wanted to take a moment to ask us to really think on this one:  "Prayer is bringing your wishes and worries to God; faith is leaving them there." Now, how many of us do a great job at the "prayer" part of this, but kind of fall down a little on the "faith" part?  I think all of us could honestly answer that one with a "kinda not so good"! We might just need to work a little bit more on the "faith" part since we have the "discussion" and "complaint" part of prayer down pretty well! Pile your troubles on God’s shoulders—he’ll carry your load, he’ll help you out.  He’ll never let good people topple into ruin.  But you, God, will throw the others into a muddy bog, cut the lifespan of assassins and traitors in half.  And I trust in you.  (Psalm 55:22-23 MSG) We might give lip-service to letting God carry our load, but I'd have to say many of us take...

The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle. (Johanna Hannah Arendt)  I would like us to consider the words of this Jewish-American theorist today because her thoughts here are quite telling. Many of us are looking for the "new" - we hope for something just a little different than what we have, or perhaps a totally new "make over" so the old is out and the new is in. Yet, if we stop to consider how the new comes, we might just be surprised by the realization of the new coming because somehow the odds stacked against it ever coming to fruition were overcome! I have hibiscus plants in the back yard. Those flowers don't last long, but they open into magnificently large orange, red, and yellow flowers, providing much folly for the hummingbirds who feed upon them and enjoyment for the ones ...