The Plumbline

Problems have a potential to destroy those who don't get up time and time again with a renewed determination to face them, deal with them, and be finished with them!  We can get pretty down if all we do is focus on the problem.  When we get our focus outside the problem, into the arena of considering the solutions, we have a chance to actually deal with the issues and get it fixed for good.  Yesterday, we looked at the ways we perceive our problems as influencing what we do with them.  When we see them as opportunities for our growth rather than challenges to do us in, we face them differently, don't we?  I heard a friend once say, "Problems have to be handled on a different level than they were created."  That stuck with me all these years - there is more truth in those words than some may think.  As long as we remain firmly rooted in the problem, we have no chance to get free of its hold.  We find the solutions to the problem on a different "lev...

Have you ever heard the saying, “I was going the wrong direction, but I sure was making good time”?  In life, we have a lot of different directions – only one really produces the best outcome - - - all the rest are a poor substitute or just plain wrong.  If you have ever seen a corn maze, you know there are a lot of tall corn stalks growing in the field – some have been removed to make a series of paths for you to traverse through.  In the midst of the tall green stalks, you might get a little twisted around and end up back where you started.  If you have ever seen the “birds-eye” view from a helicopter above, you can see plainly the design of the maze.  You know which turns will end in dead-ends and those which will just loop you around to the same spot you started.  The maze is designed to confound you a little.  Guess what?   Life is designed to confound you a bit at times, too!  There are turns which will dead-end us, sometimes afte...

To scorn wisdom is to cut short your days.  How many of us really want to cut our days short?  Most of us actually hope we will find some way to add another hour to the day, day to the week, or years to our lives!  We just don’t have the time to get everything done we hoped to accomplish.  We can become so distracted by the things which promise us gain, influence, status, or value in life that we miss the true things that will.  The promise of God is that he will not let the godly starve - it doesn't say if the godly work themselves to the bone, tire themselves out in the efforts they exert, etc.  It simply says God won't starve the honest soul.  He even will satisfy the cravings of our soul - the fulfillment of those cravings may be with something quite different than we'd pursue on our own.  Left to our own devices, we'd likely pursue the stuff which falls "just short" of what God intends for us. They are "good", but they aren't "great...