The Plumbline

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase. (Martin Luther King, Jr.) Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. (Philippians 2:7 NLT) We can be paralyzed by fear, making it almost impossible to take steps forward. Why does fear cause us so many issues in life? If we have never really made a commitment to Jesus, then I suspect that most of our fear is because we have been attempting to figure life and all of its challenges out on our own. That might not work so well when the forces against us are mounting and the ability to resist them is getting harder. Fear can and will keep us in a position of servitude to it as long as we allow it access to our minds, will, and emotions. The only way to fully be free of our servitude to fear is to ask Jesus to rule over those three things - something we cannot do until we ask him in...

Confucius said, "Life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated." What makes your life more complicated than it needs to be? I daresay that if we were to answer that one honestly, we'd all have something that we'd have to admit just muddles things up for us time and time again. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us, " Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take." If we want to 'uncomplicate' our lives, it begins with trusting in the Lord. As we dedicate our hearts to do his will, seeking life instead of death with each of our actions, we tend to 'uncomplicate' the things that we get so muddled up on own. Seek his will IN all you do - it is in our actions that most of the complications of life manifest themselves, but all action begins with thought and that originates from what is within our minds. We can develop a much better and consistent...