Honest scales and balances are from the LORD; all the weights in the bag are of his making (Proverbs 16:11).

There's a hardware store just up the street from where I live.  It's a little place, locally-owned, and they tend to do things the old-fashioned way.  When you come in, a little bell (not an electronic one) jangles over the threshhold.  The aisles are narrow and twisted -- a mix of paint products, plumbing products, construction products, and tools -- fitting to the contour of its small, urban, shop-space.  The cash register is an old mechanical model, probably from the 1940s or so, yet it still keeps chugging and dinging away, as it does its work.  Nails, screws, nuts and bolts are kept in bins behind the counter with the expectation that the shopkeeper can help you get whatever you need.  And when you buy products in bulk -- say, a handful of penny nails -- they actually take you into a little back corner of the store, where they weigh the product on an old-fashioned scale, figuring out the precise weight of your order with an elaborate system of small leaded counterweights, drawn from a small bin right above the scale.

When I read Proverbs 16:11, I think about this old-fashioned scale in this old-fashioned hardware store.  To me, the shopkeepers at the neighborhood hardware store seem to be very honest folk -- so the association is a positive one.  I can see the LORD's scales, balances, and weights much like cosmic versions of the very tangible version at the neighborhood hardware store.

What strikes me from this comparison is the goodness and honesty of the LORD:  that He has this bag of weights that are the same for all people and all circumstances.  He measures our situations with honesty, fairness, and justice -- totally impervious to the ways that people try to skew things, complain about their misfortunes, and rig circumstances to their advantage.  And the LORD's judgments are always accurate.  It feels so good to know that these things are constant and concrete, unlike so many other things around us.  A lot of times, I find myself confused and wondering how I should really think about a given situation; but when I can reassure myself that God is good and just, and that He will work all things out according to His goodness and His justice, it gives me peace to be able to release things to God in prayer.  Just like in my neighborhood hardware store, I don't have to worry about figuring out the self-scan machinery and accurately determining the appropriate pricing for something.  God is in charge; He's taking care of it.  And I can rest assured in the knowledge that honest scales and balances are from the LORD; all the weights in the bag are of his making.