The Plumbline

My grandson and I built a deck on my workshop this past weekend. It was an undertaking - each of us learning something along the way. As we were working, I heard him ask if I had enjoyed any grapes from my vines this year. I told him I had not because it takes at least two years for them to begin to produce. I did not expect any this year - in fact, if I see them next year, that will probably be about as soon as fruit would be predicted. As a child, we had a home surrounded by citrus trees - 13 of them in our yard. Grapefruit and oranges abounded this time of the year, but in order to enjoy their sweetness, we had to do more than just stand under the trees and hope a fruit would fall off into our waiting hands. We could pick the low hanging stuff pretty easily, but we had to climb ladders and branches to get to the rest of it! Oftentimes the most prized fruit was up higher and more hidden from immediate view. That made the discovery of the fruit much more enjoyable indeed. It was Thom...

Did you ever play that game as a child referred to as "Truth or Dare"? If you were brave enough to trust the one asking the question, you'd maybe choose 'truth', all the while hoping the individual wouldn't ask you anything all that revealing. If you didn't trust them to 'stay out of your business', you'd select 'dare' and take your chances that you'd be able to endure drinking a cup of pickle juice, putting your tongue on a frozen light pole, or the like. Sometimes I think we approach God like we are playing a game of "Truth or Dare" with him. We might just fear he will dig a little too deeply, so we opt for 'skirting the issue' - diverting attention to another topic in our prayer time. All the while, we need the 'truth moment', but we opt for the 'daring moment' when we veer from what we really needed all along - confession! If we claim that we're free of sin, we're only fooling ourselves....