The Value of Strength

President Lincoln Statue. Cowboy Museum in OK City.

My thoughts...

In society today many times people feel pressured to submit to the popular trends of thoughts and beliefs so not to offend. The concept of a standard of excellence and truth can be overlooked and pushed to the side. What has happened to the idea of a plumb line of measurement? Plumb lines are used by painters and carpenters to keep their work straight. It is easy to get off center and begin to go crooked. A plumb line provides that true reference that all work must measure up to so the work is correctly done. As one writer wrote, "A plumb line doesn't change or move according to the whims of the carpenter, it remains true." (www.gotquestions.org)

So what about other areas of life? Can we live however we want? Can we say what is wrong is really right in certain situations. What is to constitute what is wrong? If I feel like it is right...can't it be right? If I have an altruistic motive, can't I do something that is illegal and still be right? A society and a life that is guided by such ambivalence is truly headed into chaos. In such trying times, it takes a voice that is willing to rise and say, "This is the way, walk in it. This is truth. This is right." A voice and a standard that does not change when the challenges come. It takes strength. It takes courage to be such a voice...such a beacon of light and truth.

I think of Abraham Lincoln. I think of the voice he had in the nation of the USA. He saw the wrong of the day even though slavery was well accepted and slavery served a purpose on the plantations of the South. He was willing to raise up a standard for right and truth in the midst of unpopular thought for that day. President Lincoln was strong to stand and make his Gettysburg address. He declared that the nation of the USA was "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." What strength it took for him to be a voice for liberty and equality in the slavery dilemma of that day. And what a change his strength and his voice made!

So I encourage you in the day we are living...Be Strong. Be Courageous. Be a Voice for Right and for Truth. There is a plumb line that our lives are to be guided by. There is a right and there is a wrong. There is light and there is darkness. Love well. Love brings light into a dark world. Speak the truth from that motive of love. Be Strong!

---