The Plumbline

What do you do with the clear instructions God gives you? Do you immediately obey them, or do you hesitate a little, then come up with a slightly different plan? When God says, 'do this', are we quick to give him 'other conditions' that need to be met before we will take that step of obedience? If the task ahead is daunting, it stands to reason there may be a little hesitation. We get a little fearful of the steps forward, but in that hesitation, we find time to concoct a plan that 'adds to' God's original plan. Rarely is this the best thing to do, but we have a hard time taking God at his word. After Ehud’s death, the Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight. So the Lord turned them over to King Jabin of Hazor, a Canaanite king. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-haggoyim. Sisera, who had 900 iron chariots, ruthlessly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years. Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help. Deborah....

"Change is the end result of all true learning." (Leo Buscaglia) As I listened to a gospel song the other day, I actually learned something. We use the word 'always' to describe God's faithfulness, but could it be that the better word we should use is 'never'? As in: “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.” (Hebrews 13:5) - we are never left on our own, to work out our own misery or find our own way in life. "He will never give up on you. Never forget that." (I Corinthians 1:9) - we might feel like it is time to give up, but there is never a right time to give up or give in - God wants us to never forget that he isn't about to give up on us - no matter what. "If we give up on him, he does not give up—for there’s no way he can be false to himself." (2 Timothy 2:13) - God can never be anything but what he is and that is faithful, loving, tenderhearted, and longsuffering. "Your kingdom is a kingdom eternal; you never get...

As pressure and stress bear down on me, I find joy in your commands. (Psalm 119:143)  The late Walt Disney said, "It is kind of fun to do the impossible." With God, much of what we see as impossible is really not, but that doesn't minimize the fact that the impossible comes with its own stress and pressure. There is a certain 'stress' within faith - trust requires stepping outside of our comfort zone from time to time. When we do, the pressure that can bear down on us can almost overwhelm us. This is why we must press into our relationship with Jesus even harder during these times.  Someone once told me to enjoy that stress and feel that pressure. Why? It meant I was going to see God work within my life in ways I had never experienced before. So, I took that advice and actually took a different attitude toward all that pressure as the 'impossible' closed in around me. Do you know what happened? Before long, the 'attitude' I had assumed actually beg...