The Plumbline

Seek God while he’s here to be found, pray to him while he’s close at hand. Let the wicked abandon their way of life and their evil way of thinking. Let them come back to God, who is merciful, come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness. (Isaiah 55:6 MSG) God has mercy that far out reaches ours, doesn't he? Given our tendency to be impatient with other people, we'd want to cut off those 'sinners' and 'heathens' who refuse to heed his warnings, listen to his truth, or outright oppose his message. Did you ever stop to consider what would have happened if Jesus had of been that impatient with us? Seek God while he's here to be found. That is a pretty specific command with a pretty limited opportunity, is it not? It implies that God will not always wait - he will call for the day of judgment at some point. The question at hand is whether those who will hear will heed his call and reach out for his mercy.  Mercy is available - now, at this moment, witho...

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 27:12 NLT) Impetuous desire has been the downfall of many since the beginning of time, has it not? If we were to be honest with each other today, we'd likely have our own accounting of 'impetuous' decisions we've made that didn't end so well. Without thought or care, we trudged into something, finding what we hoped to be there fell short of our desires. Did we learn from those impetuous decisions, or do we continue to make them, thinking the outcome will somehow change? As a wise person once told me - if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. We might refer to that failure to learn as being a little bit foolish, right? We know the outcome will be a certain way, but we blindly ...