The Plumbline

Bless:  To bestow good of any kind upon someone; to protect or guard from evil; beautify. At first, the word "bless" or the term "be blessed" may seem a little superfluous and we dismiss it because we really don't stop to consider just what it means.  If we consider each of these points individually, we might just reconsider our being "blessed"!  If someone comes into your life to bring good, bestowing all manner of "blessing" or "goodness" into your life, wouldn't you be delighted to have come into acquaintance with that individual?  In fact, you probably would not want to break that relationship because it has such "good benefits"! Now, this is not the purpose of remaining in relationship with Jesus, but it is a "perk" of it! As long as we remain close to his heart, we receive the blessings of his heart!  That said, we can then add the next definition - that of being protected and guarded from all manner o...

Very few of us have lived through a devastating plague of any sorts, let alone swarms of locusts capable of destroying everything in sight in a matter of hour - trees, crops, bushes, and all manner of growth.  Leaving nothing in their wake other than stubs and dry earth, they move on, multiplying as they go, until their numbers are so many their sheer movement brings darkness to the skies above.  This is nothing most of us will experience in our lifetimes, but we do face some pretty devastating plagues of sorts, for the meaning of plague is anything which brings widespread affliction, calamity, or evil.  Think about this closest to home and you might recount the devastation of cancer in your immediate family, or the awfulness of losing a child to the afflicting power of drugs.  It doesn't have to be insects or bacterial infection of mass proportions, does it?  The stuff we deal with on a daily basis can leave us kind of "sheered off", "exposed", and "strug...

I think we humans sometimes forget just who is in control of this entire universe and who it is who actually holds all things in motion.  We forget that our sphere of control is not really our own - but is something "granted" to us by a loving and caring God.  Lest we get ourselves all puffed up and proud about what it is we do, possess, etc., let us remember it is God who "lets" us rule everything his hands have made!  Sometimes we think it is the other way around - we do all the making and ask God to have a little oversight into the matter!  If we were to be totally honest, we actually have the intelligence we have to create because the Creator gave us that small bit of intelligence we possess! I often think of the heavens your hands have made, and of the moon and stars you put in place.  Then I ask, “Why do you care about us humans?  Why are you concerned for us weaklings?”  You made us a little lower than you yourself, and you have crowned u...