A Shaky Quantity

God's love and peace to you on this fine morning! You've done it before, and it is quite likely that I have as well. Some task or job we do every day brings with it some quantity that we take for granted. That is, we take it for granted until someone else finds out our estimate of the quantity is a little shaky. The substitute teacher finds out for herself how many kids are in the class, and it's more than "just a few". When the kids are wound up from a 'cute, little show', she also finds out how easy they are to control. Even to the bystander the quantity may be a little shaky. We don't know how hard the work is until we walk a mile or two in the other guy's sneakers. All that fellow does is drive a car around an oval track for a few hours on Sunday. How could his job be called tough? There is no end to the doings of the human race that may look easy or light from a certain unfeeling distance.

In a little sermon, Jesus gave us some instruction in gaining insight into some of these things. "If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles." (Matt 5:41) As a part of teaching us to not seek revenge, Jesus told us how to gain insight into the other person's situation. I ran into this a lot back in the big corporation. Always, some group or person over there, out yonder, or in that other place had it pretty good, or at least better than 'we' have it here in this place. If it wasn't a different part of the corporation, then it would be great to work in a smaller shop, or perhaps not at all for a spell. We have all looked around at others and estimated a shaky quantity. Then that Paul had to go and preach about learning to be content.

Yes, looking around the world, we tend to find every situation but our own to be much easier for learning contentment. We like to think that God made Paul magically content whether he was wealthy or poor. We don't want to think that Paul had to endure both of these things first, and probably more than once, before he learned that contentment. Single folks think that married folks have it great, and the married people sometimes yearn back to the simplicity of living alone. The desk-bound worker wonders if the construction job might not suit better, while the laborer on the hot day thinks that a desk job in the air-conditioned office would be just the ticket. Paul must have found a better direction to look for learning contentment and estimating his quantities. Maybe we can look to Him too!

Have a great day in Christ Jesus,
Bucky