A Measure of a Person

I think this story will be safe to share - I don't believe my husband reads my blog - and if he does - I will soon know....

A while back our refrigerator died and we needed a new one.  My husband measured the space several times and he felt he had what we needed.  We went shopping and picked out a new refrigerator based on his measurements.  When it was delivered however, we quickly learned that it was not going to fit.  There wasn't room for the door to open, and there was a light switch that it was tight against.  We ended up having to do a little home remodeling - taking down about 8" of wall and moving the light switch.  Whether when we looked at the measurements posted on the refrigerator they were the inside measurements or he measured incorrect, who knows we just knew something was not right.  Actually, I think it looks a little better with the changes we had to make, but that's a whole different story.

One of the Gospels for this week talked about measuring and it had me thinking about exactly what is measuring all about.  As I was researching this topic of measuring, I asked myself - "Is judging and measuring the same thing?"  I believe the answer is yes and no.  To be clear - these are my personal definitions.  To me judging is when we look at someone or something and hold it to our personal standards with us being the gold standard.  "She doesn't keep house as good as I do, so I judge her to be less than me." (just an example - my house is always in need of cleaning)  We are determining someone's worth based on our personal beliefs and standards.  Where measuring is something a little different, is when we are looking at people and things based on standards set by society or tools that we have created.  We can see where they are making progress.  But here is where it get's sticky - now, we can use those measurements to judge.  Just as when we were determining if a refrigerator would fit - my husband had used a measuring tape - we were not judging the refrigerator, we held it up to the measurements we had - but then we eliminated refrigerators if we judged that they were either too big or too small (or didn't have an ice maker - I desperately wanted an ice maker.)

So, when we "measure someone up" - we may be looking at how successful they are based on their education, income, profession, etc. We can also judge ourselves and measure our success by these same society standards.  I'm turning 60 and all the TV ads keep telling me I should have X number of dollars set aside for retirement, I do not have that amount, so I am not measuring up to others who are my same age and so I judge myself worth as being less..   These are standards set by our society - right or wrong.  For we can see by my refrigerator debacle that measurements can be wrong or incorrect.

Why is this important?  Jesus has told us that as we judge others, so shall we be judged, and what we use to measure, we will be measured.  That's a little scary.  It definitely makes me uncomfortable.  So, first we shouldn't be judging anyone or ourselves.  It's wrong and we know it.  It can be hard at times, but we must be strong.  Measuring someone or ourselves may not always be bad - it depends on what tools we use and what we are using them for.  And I believe (again this is my opinion) the only tool we should be using is the two commandments Jesus left for us.  Love God above all others, love others as we love ourselves. 

My next question - is why do we want to measure anyone or ourselves in the first place?  Sometimes I know I need to stop and reflect back on things - how I handled a situation or am I keeping the Lord first in my life.  And I measure my actions based on these two commandments.  And at times (no, really a lot of times) I can see that I did not measure up - this can help me to correct my actions, I may need to apologize to someone - or even to the Lord.  In writing this - I am seeing that perhaps we shouldn't be measuring anyone else - for then it is too easy to slide into judgement.  And when measuring ourselves - it should only be to improve our growth and not to determine our self worth.

This process has been a little eye opening for me; when I started my research, I thought measuring was ok, but now I can see it can lead to other problems (and more time in the confessional.)