The Plumbline

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Albert Einstein What specifically would you like to learn today? I imagine some will quickly report their desire to learn how to make their money work well for them so their future income is well-established. Others will quip they need to learn how to save in the first place! If we are honest here, there are great deal of things we'd desire to learn, but take very little time or invest very little effort into learning. I would have loved to learn to play the piano, but I never learned a note on those ivory keys. It wasn't for the lack of seeing pianos - there were lots in my immediate associations who had them. It wasn't for the lack of affording lessons - I could have even trades my services cleaning a yard or washing windows if that was considered a fair trade. What I lacked was the 'want to' behind the desire. Sometimes we have a lot more desire than 'w...

There are always going to be times when we feel like we have been 'harmed' in relationship - it is part of we humans trying to live and interact together. We won't always get our own way, nor will we be continuously satisfied with what we see in others. Part of human nature is to fail on occasion - we cannot avoid that harsh fact. It is how we respond to these failures in others that really matters - not the failure so much, but our response of heart and emotion toward the failure, and more importantly - toward the person who has failed! Don’t seek vengeance. Don’t bear a grudge; but love your neighbor as yourself, for I am Jehovah. ( Leviticus 19:18 TLB ) When we hold grudges, or 'nurse them' as some people refer to it, we are really creating a 'debt account' in which the other individual begins to 'owe us' for each offense. We are then adding 'interest' to the 'debt' owed each time we rehearse (nurse) the grudge. 'Unpaid ...

Have you ever ended up in a place where you just thought it was 'too dry' and a 'little barren'? As the summer sun heats up the Arizona desert, it is easy to 'get behind' in our fluid intake - especially when the day gets going and we forget to take time to seek out the water we so desperately need. When we finally feel ourselves 'fading' from the heat and the intensity of our thirst beginning to nag at us, it is oftentimes a little late in the process! We are squarely in the middle of the dry place and there is just no alternative to turn to in order to find the satisfaction we desire. God doesn't leave us thirsty, but he never says we won't have times when we 'thirst'! Directed by God, the whole company of Israel moved on by stages from the Wilderness of Sin. They set camp at Rephidim. And there wasn't a drop of water for the people to drink. The people took Moses to task: "Give us water to drink." But Moses said, "W...