The Plumbline

25  Keep your eyes on the path, and look straight ahead.   26  Make sure you are going the right way, and nothing will make you fall.   27  Don’t go to the right or to the left, and you will stay away from evil. (Proverbs 4:25-27 ERV) When we are determined in our course there is a motivation that keeps us moving right along, but not every "determined course" is actually the right one to be on in life. Some of the course we tread actually bring us turmoil, troubles, and tempests we have to navigate around or through. We aren't infallible people and we make fallible decisions, don't we? It is easy for us to mistaken about where we are headed, but it is impossible for us to never see or hear any of the warnings to not put ourselves out there - at least one or two warnings will be observed, but not necessarily heeded.  I think this is best illustrated in something I discovered on a recent fishing trip. You see, I knew where the fish were hiding - I had obs...

" Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye ." (H. Jackson Brown, Jr.) Most of us need to be a little more proficient in seeing through the heart and less reliant upon what we take in through our eyes! We might just be surprised what is possible to "see" when we don't limit our "vision". Quite some time ago, a series of books came out featuring this little guy dressed in a red and white striped shirt and hat, hidden somewhere in the midst of many other people on the pages. The object of each of the books is to find Waldo amidst a plethora of other "distracting objects" and then to find some object he absent-mindedly left behind or lost in that location he has just visited. I think it may just be the illustrator of these books wanted us to focus - to train our eye to see the important thing (Waldo). Yet, our eye is drawn to all the other color, images, and "clutter" on the page. We have to work hard to see what the eye ma...

Some of you were sick because you’d lived a bad life,   your bodies feeling the effects of your sin;  You couldn’t stand the sight of food,   so miserable you thought you’d be better off dead.  Then you called out to  God  in your desperate condition;  he got you out in the nick of time.  He spoke the word that healed you,   that pulled you back from the brink of death.  So thank  God  for his marvelous love,   for his miracle mercy to the children he loves;  Offer thanksgiving sacrifices,  tell the world what he’s done—sing it out! (Psalm 107:17-22 MSG) It is so true - our bodies feel the effects of our sin. Our minds feel the effects in feelings of guilt or shame. Our emotions play on our memories and these weigh us down with depression, anxiety, and perpetual feelings of low self-worth. Live well and there is balance; live poorly and there is imbalance. Convictions aren't always enough to carry us through ...