Measuring Up

“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, the Lord looks at the heart.”
1 Samuel 16:7

As many of you are aware, my wife is a school teacher. This year about ¾ of the classes in her school had to change rooms. The new principle wanted to get the halls lined up differently than they had been previously set up.  So being the loving and supporting husband that I am, I helped box up years of supplies, stack desks and move file cabinets to another classroom at the opposite end of the hall. After everything was set up, arranged, rearranged and then rearranged again it was all in place. I helped her go through and sort books back into their proper category and to decorate bulletin boards.  As we were about finished, she noticed that there wasn’t anywhere in the room to hang her pull down maps. We studied the situation and there was a bracket already on the wall for a screen, that was no longer being used, but it was too wide to hold the maps. So being the creative person that she is, Susan said, “Why don’t you just cut me a 2x4, paint it black, and the maps could them fit perfectly on the existing bracket.  My reply was what every good husband replies, “Yes dear”. I looked around the room and found what I thought was a yard stick and measured the distance across the bracket so I would know how long to cut my board. It came out to be seventy inches. Easy enough, that evening I cut and paint a board. It was perfect. The next morning I went to mount the board and it was too short. I went and got the same stick and measured again, it was still seventy inches. As my heart sank, I realized it wasn’t a yard stick that I was measuring with, it was a meter stick. A meter stick is almost four inches longer than a yard stick. My first reaction is why is there a meter stick in a classroom? This is America!  Other than soft drinks; we don’t use the metric system. Ultimately it was my fault. I had used the wrong system of measurements.

Our society measures the greatness of a man in many different ways. How good is he at sports? How big is his truck? What brand shirt or shoes does he have on? What is his occupation?  We measure women too. How big is the ring she has on? How many children does she have?  How thick is her makeup? We have to be careful in not looking at ourselves or others the way society does. God measures us by our heart. How much do you love Jesus?  How much do you serve others? How often do you put others first or minister to them?

Don’t get caught up in measuring yourself by what you see on television or even in what you see in your neighbor. Look at your heart. That is God’s yard stick to measure you by.