To Illustrate…
April 1, 1988
SPIRITUAL STATURE
The growth chart had slipped from the playroom wall because the tape on its comers had become dry and brittle. Five-year-old Jordan hung it up again, meticulously working to get it straight. Then he stood his sister against the wall to measure her height. "Mommy! Mommy! Anneke is forty inches tall!" he shouted as he burst into the kitchen. "I measured her." His mom replied, "That's impossible. Sweetheart. She's only 3 years old. Lets go see." They walked back into the playroom, where the mother's suspicions were confirmed. Despite his efforts to hang the chart straight, Jordan had failed to set it at the proper height. It was several inches low. We easily make Jordan's mistake in gauging our spiritual growth or importance. Compared to a shortened scale, we may appear better than we are. Only when we stand against the Cross, that "great leveler of men" as A. T. Robertson called it, can we not think of ourselves "more highly than we ought to think." Christ, himself, must be our standard. - Robert H. Heijermans Yarmouth, Nova Scotia CHILDLIKENESS
Robert Fulghum wrote in the Kansas City Times, "Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school. "These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. . . . When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together." This writer has captured part of what Jesus meant when he said, "Unless you become like little children, you ...
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