The Plumbline

12  Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should. (Psalm 90:12 TLB) "As we should" are pretty powerful words, aren't they? They are also "telling" words, for many of us would probably echo back, "Not as we would", for we have chosen a much different path than the one we "should" have taken! Emerson told us, " Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail ." Too many times we have followed his advice and found ourselves blazing a new trail that perhaps we'd have been much better off to have never explored! Someone once said that choosing a path means we abandon some other path - I think the rest of the saying implies that the abandoning of one may mean it is abandoned forever.  We all have many choices of the paths we take each and every day. The paths may be well-worn by us by now, requiring us some effort to abandon because the groo...

When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same anymore. A new life has begun! ( 2 Corinthians 5:17   TLB ) Some of us need to hear that message time and time again to realize we are "not the same anymore". Too many times we tell ourselves a completely different story, such as "I will never change" or "No one will ever see me any differently". The truth is that you have changed and God sees you totally differently - for he sees you through the eyes of GRACE. Grace indicates a new beginning - we have become a brand new person - maybe not on the outside, but definitely on the inside! Notice it doesn't say we get a "thrift store" kind of fix up. It isn't that we get the rejects of others to "make us new". We get the best of Christ - the new "garments of righteousness" to replace the very best of "hand me down rags" anyone else could ever offer us. We are often thin...

I am the Lord, who opened a way through the waters, making a path right through the sea. But forget all that—it is nothing compared to what I’m going to do! For I’m going to do a brand-new thing. See, I have already begun! Don’t you see it? I will make a road through the wilderness of the world for my people to go home, and create rivers for them in the desert! ( Isaiah 43:16, 18-19   TLB ) Is it possible God is saying to you that he is creating a brand new thing in your life - opening a road through the wilderness in some area of your life that has never been explored before? We so often start our new year with resolutions - wouldn't it be awesome to start it with revelations instead! God revealing new paths - opening us up to new possibilities - that sounds pretty awesome to me! There are definitely times we hold onto the past "good stuff" thinking we cannot move on from there because if we do, we might just "lose" some of that "good stuff". Re...