The Plumbline

Have you ever read through those portions of scripture with the continual list of "so and so begat so and so"?  You know the ones I mean - those many chapters in the Book on Numbers or the first chapter of Matthew.  We see this "laundry list" of genealogy, with no clue what importance knowing all these "facts" is to us.  I wish I had listened closer when Dad was alive - because my genealogy is now no longer as readily available to me since we did not write it all down when he'd share it!  Somewhere in my family there is a Knight - I guess this is like a little bit of "royalty", so nobody minds declaring their relation to him!  Somewhere in my genealogy there is probably a little bit of the "not so royal" relations - you know, the ones no one talks about at family dinners!  They are in all our "family lines" right?  But...there is a "genealogy" of sorts which really puts us all on the same level - the adoption int...

Most of us "deal with" people in our jobs.  Some of us more openly - as in the arena of sales, customer assistance, and cashiering.  Others of us have a more "behind the scenes" approach to dealing with people - as in controlling the air space from a flight control tower.  As we are well aware, not ALL people are easy to deal with.  Sometimes it takes every ounce of our being to just not choke them!  This was the case yesterday as I stopped at a local retailer to make a quick purchase on my way home.  There in line as I entered the store were two people - one husband, looking rather disengaged and gazing off into the distance as his wife, obviously was "engaged" in a rather heated discussion with the clerk.  She was miffed about not being able to use expired "promotion dollars" she had "earned" when making a previous purchase from this retailer.  Now, don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to be able to use all my coupons, gift cards, and...

Did you ever stop to consider just how much you actually "worry" about stuff you really have no control over?  You leave the house in the morning, finding traffic a little heavier than you expected, only to come upon a wreck which has bogged traffic down even further.  Instead of being concerned about the wreck, we find ourselves concerned about whether we will reach our destination on time.  We see the "low tire pressure" sensor has triggered the little light on the dashboard of the car, so we stop, get out, look around all four tires, then fret we might have picked up a stray nail somewhere.  We count and recount the number of items in our cart at the checkout lane because the sign says "15 items or less" - in turn, we are worrying if the three bananas count as one item or three!  Silly stuff, really, but we worry ourselves about stuff we have no control over.  No wonder we go to bed exhausted at night!  We wear ourselves out with worry! My dear ch...