Not long after moving to the country, I decided to build a tree house. Officially it was going to be a two-story deck built around the trunk of a massive tree. My neighbor had given me several round poles that were about 16’ long, and at his insistence, I began building a frame with them. They were free, after all.
But being as tall as they were, it was difficult to keep the poles straight. I nailed boards to the poles at 45-degree angles, bracing them. I kept eyeballing the poles to ensure they were straight. I also used an eight-foot bubble level.
But the curvature of the poles created problems. Every time I thought my frame was true (“true” being carpenter-talk for “straight”), I would walk around the structure and see that I was wrong. The thing was not true. It was off. That’s when I began using plumblines.
Do you know what a plumbline is? I made mine with long lengths of kite string tied around a nut or a bolt at one end. Then I attached the strings to the top of the tall poles on at least four sides. If the strings hung loosely not touching the post at any point, it indicated the post was not straight.
Plumblines are one of the simplest mechanical devices. The word “plumb” refers to lead weights on a string. In modern English, if a structure such as a doorframe is “plumb,” then it is vertically true, whereas, if it is “level,” then it is horizontally true. Thus, plumblines answer a critical question: is this structure straight, or does it lean? A lean is a weakness. Leaning walls collapse.
God showed Amos a vision of a plumbline.
“Behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, ‘Amos, what seest thou?’
And I said, ‘A plumbline.’
Then the Lord said, ‘Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel. I will not again pass by them anymore; and the high places of Isaac shall be 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.
The Lord is giving Israel one more chance. He will not send locusts yet, Amos 7:2. He will not send fire yet, Amos 7:5. But he is coming to take measurements with a plumbline.
What will God find when he measures you and me? Are you straight? Do I lean?
God’s word is the plumbline. How do you measure up against the word? Are you honest? Are you a person of integrity? Can people depend on you? Can you support the weight of other people’s expectations? Can employers rely on you? Can family and friends rely on you? Or do you lean so badly that you will collapse under the expectations of daily life? Are you true or are you “one bubble off plumb,” as they say?
“Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out” Proverbs 10:9.
Integrity means “wholeness.” If you are honest, if you “walk in uprightness,” you will be healthy and whole.
“God made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before him” Psalm 18:20 (The Message).
When God holds a plumbline up against your life, what will he find? Do you stand straight and TRUE, or are there weak spots, curves, and deviations in your character?
“Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people” Amos 7:8.
AΩ
[1] Though the King James Version employs the word “grasshopper,” most use the word “locust.” A locust is simply a type of grasshopper that has undergone hormonal changes due to an abundance of food following a drought: grasshoppers are solitary, but locusts swarm in the millions; grasshoppers do not fly per se but merely hop. Locusts are migratory and can fly for miles leaving destruction in their wake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locust
*I never did finish that tree house–which is just as well, as lightning soon killed the tree.