The Plumbline

Hey, does anyone else out there ever feel like your life is just unraveling a bit? There are days where my ends seem a little frayed - how about yours? Those days don't always come that frequently, but when they do, man oh man...they can leave you exhausted! Some of mine come in the form of being there when the Department of Health walks in for an unannounced inspection or complaint investigation when I am the sole occupant of the office! Then maybe there is that moment when you see deadlines fast approaching, but you have put off that project you just didn't want to get to - now it looms like a spider coming closer and closer while you have no shoes on! You know the feeling - that moment of panic and dismay - wondering how you will ever get past it! What we must always recognize is that God is still in control - even when we have lost it! Going through a long line of prophets, God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries. Recently he spoke to us dire...

There are days when we just don't think we have much purpose in whatever journey it is we are called to undertake, but let me be the first to assure you nothing could be further from the truth! Whatever it is we are called to do, we are to do it with intent, commitment, and love. Jesus had one of those days when it seemed like he was just 'on his way' from one place to another. He found himself coming into Bethany, a town a had frequented on many occasions. It was kind of common place for him to 'cycle' through Bethany on his travels. He even had friends there. One very special event had transpired there that made Bethany a notorious place - Lazarus had been raised from the dead. Not just the dead, but the smelly, not so inviting tomb. Already wrapped in burial clothes and scented with the herbs of burial, he laid there for three days prior to his coming forth from death. His unmarried sisters were grief-stricken at the loss of their brother - their male head of the...

I often re-read passages of scripture, sometimes seeing a 'new truth'. It isn't really a 'new truth' because the truth was there all along - I just wasn't seeing it before! My circumstances change and the 'new truth' I need changes with them. I need encouragement one moment, and maybe I need conviction the next. How is it possible one passage could deliver one such truth at one time and a completely different one the next? I think it is both the condition and readiness of our heart that makes the difference. All of us has called out for help at a moment when things are getting a little too harried for us to endure. As soon as things 'settle down' a bit, we lose that intensity, don't we? To be transparent here, I would have to admit there is no other acknowledgement that God needs more than the simple admittance that we "need his help". I honestly believe that those very words set in motion countless things way beyond our comprehensi...