The Plumbline

Few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought. (Thucydides) A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. (Proverbs 22:3) Thucydides said it well: "Calm and prudent forethought" wins out over those things we do or say out of impetuous desire or the lack of any forethought at all. As scripture reminds us, the 'prudent person' can actually foresee danger and is ready to take precautions. Why? They have spent time with Jesus giving those things a little forethought and 'forward-planning' in order to avoid the impetuous, unthinking actions of sin. We are guilty at times of moving too quickly - making rash decisions that end up in less than desirable results. Some call it falling headlong into a trap set in crafty fashion to trip us up. While we give the devil a whole lot of credit for things he doesn't actually do, we might want to...

If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers. (I John 4:20-21 NLT) Do we love our fellow believers? There are always going to be individuals in our path that just don't exude all those 'lovable' qualities we'd like to see someone have, aren't there? We might think we are doing a pretty good job at 'loving' others until we actually hear that voice in our heads that begins to complain about that one who just doesn't make it easy to love them. As soon as we hear them, see them, or hear what they are up to right now, we begin to hear that internal conversation we have about how 'odd' they are, or how 'un' this or that. In truth, we are having a hard time looking past their idiosyncrasies, aren't we? Does God see those idiosyncrasie...