Measuring UP?!

Pencils, paper, rulers—all part of the staples J needed for starting back to school.  Parents and children know this well and college students do too, though their notebooks are more likely to be computers.  School is beginning again for millions around this Country.  This being an especially significant week of personal evaluation for me (both at work and for that court ordered process I am engaged in) and being a time of preparation for schooling and academic evaluation for so many, I am compelled to ask, “How are you Measuring UP?”  This is a great question for reflection and learning and one you had better think further about to help prevent tragedies in your own life, even ones with eternal consequences.

Everyone wants to measure up to some set standard.  Children look to please and be accepted by their parents (they have an internal obstacle there too, reflected in misbehavior).  As a child grows, he or she will likely participate in some sporting event or some academic contest.  Nearly everyone today has had some experience looking to measure up or even master some video game program.  Schools have ways to measure achievement and so do most jobs.  Unfortunately, many today are abandoning time tested measuring standards or even seeking to lower the standard so that all can appear equal.  Equality and sameness are different and that subject will require its own blog article.

In the third part of my own personal evaluation yesterday, I was asked to explain the similarity of certain things, even things opposite by definition.  I was evaluated on the basis of how I could manipulate blocks, recognize patterns, explain concepts, identify information, and remember and manipulate numbers.  I was even evaluated on how I perceived things in blotches of ink.  In the previous two meetings and battery of testing, I have been evaluated by my own answers to questions in interviews including an extensive inquiry into personal and family history and through several psychological assessment tests.  In my other forced evaluations since the VT Tragedy, I have learned that there is no consistent standard used by each organization and each individual evaluator.  That is both good and bad.

The fact is that each individual is a uniquely created person.  We are made by the same Creator, so there are similarities between us.  There are similarities between us and the animal world, but clearly an enormous distinction.  Animals and other living things operate within genetically programmed instinct.  People are made in the Image of GOD.  People have an ability to think, reason, and grow in their understanding and achievement far more than do animals and people can relate personally to their Creator.  This is possible through the Person of Jesus Christ.

Friend, how are you measuring up?  Are you measuring yourself UP?  Our standard of measurement cannot be the ever changing opinions of man.  Our standard MUST BE the unchanging character of our Holy Creator.  If you seek to only please others, you will always fail to please some.  Your life will be filled with turmoil.  If you seek to please GOD, you have only One standard to meet.  This too proves to be a problem, since None of us are perfect and none of us please GOD in everything.  There is a solution for this and even power available to perfectly please GOD in any given moment (though none of us can always do this all the time).  Applying this solution will help you achieve more in every area of life.  Contact me personally or read more on this website to learn more there.  Consider Galatians 3:22:

“But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”