Safety jackets and Plumb Lines

Walking past the building site with the dog this morning I noticed that on each pile of bricks, the beginning of the new walls, was a yellow jacket, a brick safety jacket.  No doubt to protect it from frost. It looked very neat and well kept and for anyone who has been reading Amos this morning, I am absolutely sure the plumb line would fall straight down and  there is something pleasing about such order and neatness.

And yet such order and neatness aren't how I often start the week. In my head, I know what will be done and where I will fit in exercise, quiet time, domestics and the odd essay, but the reality is far removed from that, and strategic drift begins to set in by about 9.30am.

Amos' plumbline, however, isn't about order and neatness, it seems to me it might be about how aligned we are with God. Not some strict set of rules but our relationship with him. We may not have discipline and order, the day rarely works out as we plan, but to have spent some time reading God's word and listening may show us the way ahead whatever happens.
 That may be our safety jacket.

 "The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb,with a plumb line in his hand.  And the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?”

“A plumb line,” I replied.

Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer."  Amos 7 vs 7-8