Thursday, June 5, 2008 7:40 PM CDT
COLUMN: God's standard is the best measure of a life
It’s been a couple of years since I attended a high school graduation, and I’d forgotten how much I dread the speeches.
When I was covering graduations regularly as a reporter in northern Illinois, I used to play a sort of “graduation bingo” game, trying to guess what phrases and themes would be used.
Let me add right now, too, that I was a speaker at my high school graduation, and I’m sure what I said would sound equally cliche and cheesy to me now.
Graduation speakers tend to encourage graduates to follow their dreams, change the world, become something great or do something outstanding.
The end of high school is a wonderful blank slate of possibilities, and I don’t want to be a dream-killer, but just once I’d like to hear something a little closer to reality.
The truth is that we don’t all do something great with our lives, we don’t all accomplish our life’s dreams, and few of us change the world in a cure-for-cancer sort of way.
But that’s not to say our lives lack meaning or significance.
Most of us will live typical lives — the kind where we go to work in the morning, do our jobs during the day, and come home to a family or a pet at night. Some jobs — like doctors and nurses — might give more feelings of significance than others, but even in those circumstances we might wonder if we’re really making a difference in the world.
Helen Keller, who we would say had a great impact on the world, seemed to understand the key to living life significantly.
She said, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”
For the Christian life, the apostle Paul put it this way: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men ...” (Colossians 3:23)
And Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)
Some translations substitute “abundantly” for “to the full.” When I feel like my life is not full or abundant, I have to ask myself who or what I’m living for.
When Israel needed a new king, God sent the prophet Samuel to make known His choice from a family with many sons.
Samuel thought the first son he saw was the chosen one, but God said, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
If I see my life as man sees it, then I’ve done nothing great — I’m not famous, rich or popular, nor will I have left a huge impact on the world when I die.
If I see my life as God sees it, then my view might be different. He knows who I am, what I’ve done, and who I have influenced.
Whether we accomplish great things in life is a matter of choosing which standard we measure our lives by — God’s or man’s.
If we choose God’s measure, then no matter what we do, we can be doing something great.
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