The Plumbline

The Lord sees everything, and he watches us closely. Sinners are trapped and caught by their own evil deeds. They get lost and die because of their foolishness and lack of self-control. (Proverbs 5:21-23 CEV) None of us can say we watch so closely as to NEVER miss a thing! If I were honest, I would tell you there were times I was watching so closely to see what God would do in a particular circumstance, only to miss him moving somewhere other than where I was focusing! I wasn't looking where he was acting! He focused on another area of my life, but I missed it all together - seeing only the end results, but oblivious to the exact way they happened! We probably are all like this now and again - focusing so intently on one thing and missing where God is moving just a little bit down the road in our lives. Our focus might be too broad. We miss the pothole because we were just gazing at the scenery! Life is a little bit of focusing intently, but not so intently that we cannot see ...

Christ encourages you, and his love comforts you. God’s Spirit unites you, and you are concerned for others. Now...Live in harmony by showing love for each other. Be united in what you think, as if you were only one person. Don’t be jealous or proud, but be humble and consider others more important than yourselves. Care about them as much as you care about yourselves and think the same way that Christ Jesus thought... (Philippians 2:1-5 CEV) I don't deal with ambiguity very well, because I think life should have clear direction. Ambiguity is the uncertainty of meaning or intention - the purpose is simply unclear. Where there is lack of clarity, I seek it out. This is my nature - I "uncover" what is not said, or what doesn't immediately reveal itself - the implied or intended meaning. Much of my difficulty with ambiguity comes in not knowing the intent of something. When we are dealing with ambiguity for a long period of time, we often need some encouragement and c...

Be alert and think straight. Put all your hope in how kind God will be to you when Jesus Christ appears. Behave like obedient children . Don’t let your lives be controlled by your desires, as they used to be. Always live as God’s holy people should, because God is the one who chose you, and he is holy. That’s why the Scriptures say, “I am the holy God, and you must be holy too.” (I Peter 1:13-16 CEV) In medical assessment, a patient who is less alert than their baseline assessment had been at a previous point might be under the untoward influence of a sedative, or perhaps have suffered a life-altering event such as stroke or bleed into their brain. To be alert, one is to be fully awake and able to direct full attention toward something. If someone is awake, but drifts easily back to sleep, without being able to focus or concentrate on what you are asking them to do, we begin to look for causes of this "drift" in attentiveness and alertness. It is this "alertness...