You Can See It if You Look for It

Plumb bob and line (Beddingfield photo)

Today's reading:

This is what the Lord God showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A plumb line." Then the Lord said,

"See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."----Amos 7:7-9

I didn't know much, nor cared, about construction through the first 30 years of my bookish life but over time grew to appreciate the skill of those in the trade. Even more astonishing were the feats of the engineers who built the seven wonders of the ancient world without the benefit of modern technology.

One essential tool that dates back thousands of years was the plumb bob, the weight that established a vertical "plumb line." (Today we use spirit levels which reveal the vertical and horizontal through air bubbles in liquid.)

The plumb line is an irresistible metaphor for the steadiness of God's word in a world of confusion. It's a metaphor that is not fully appreciated until one tries to build something without a tool that brings one back to the straight and vertical path.

Fun Fact: the original weights were made of lead (Latin: plumbum), hence the origin of plumb bob, plumb line, and lead's chemical symbol Pb.