I bought a rule today. Not the kind of rule that you are supposed to (but don’t want to) obey. The wooden kind that carpenters use…like the one my daddy always used…like the one that we always played with when we were little…like the one that my little sister requested to have when our daddy died.
You see, Kerry and I were laying edging tiles for the flower bed in the back yard yesterday. I needed something to help keep the row the right distance from the fence. It didn’t have to be exact, so I looked around, and there, lying on the deck, was the little toy broom that all the grandsons love to play with. (One of these days they will swear they never have and never intend to touch a broom!) But there it was, and it looked about the right length for the distance I wanted the bed border to be from the fence. So I got the broom, laid it perpendicular to the fence and started placing my tiles down. Kerry was sitting up on the deck and just started hee-hawing!
“Your daddy would be laughing at you!” he said.
“Why? Because I’m measuring this with a toy broom?”
“He would be saying ‘I taught her better than that!”
“No, he would be proud of me for using whatever was at hand that would work. And this works!”
You see, I have a measure tape…the thin metal kind that you pull out of its little case and push a little button that makes it stay at the measurement you want. In fact, I have a very nice one in a wonderfully inclusive tool kit that Kerry bought for me! But as nice as it is, the little button doesn’t work very well, and the tape tends to slide slowly back into its case. That’s what I used to measure to see how many tiles would be needed for the border! I figured 62 (each tile was a foot long, so that made it easy) and rounded it up to 65 just in case it was off a bit, since the tape kept slipping. Kerry asked how much we needed, I told him 65, and he said we should get 70 in case any broke. I hadn’t thought about that, so I didn’t mention I had already rounded it up by 3.
So we got home with 70 tiles, and after spending much of Sunday afternoon digging a little trench (a broomstick’s length from the fence!) to lay the tiles, we had 11 left over. I figured that wasn’t too bad, especially since I laid out one corner a little differently than what I measured and probably used 2 or 3 less tiles than I had figured.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to pull that silly little measuring tape out every other brick to make sure I was on track. The broomstick worked just fine! Even though Kerry…and probably my daddy…was laughing at me! So I started thinking about what my daddy would use. A wooden rule! He always had that rule in his pocket. I often wondered how many of those rules he went through. My little sister (the one who has Daddy’s rule) reminded that the first section was always broken off. My older brother, who worked a lot with my dad, said that was because most measurements were less than 12”, thus requiring the rule to be used most often with the first section extended, thus making the rule more vulnerable to breakage. (That’s an engineer’s answer!) My brother also told me that our dad was very careful when buying a new rule…he would always choose one that had the 66-72 inch marks showing when folded and the 1-6 inch marks on the inside of the first section. This was because the numbers often rubbed off the tip end of the outside section and it was more difficult to measure accurately. I also figured that when the first section (the first 6 inches) was folded out, it would lie flat against whatever was being measured. My daddy not only worked hard, he worked smart! Alas, the one I bought has the first six inches showing when it is folded…and brick spacing marks on the inside! I don’t even have a carpenter’s rule; I have a brick mason’s rule! I didn’t pay that much attention when I bought it…it just looked right. Mainly because it was white, and the others where yellow. My daddy’s was always white.
All this talk about measuring and choices of measuring devices has brought me to think about how I measure up in God’s eyes. Am I choosing the right measuring device, the right standard with which to guide and direct my life? Or am I just looking around to see what is at hand that seems to be right? Am I careful to choose the right "measure" for the job, or am I just using what looks right. Obviously, if I am not reading my Bible and praying and using Jesus Christ as the "standard", I am going to be off track, out of "plumb", totally messed up! My daddy could eyeball measurements within a fraction of an inch! But he also knew that when it came to living his life in accordance with God's will, he went straight to the Bible; he prayed; he served his Lord unselfishly. Some days I am right on track, other days I could use a good "measure". And God is so good...He is always there to help me get back in line!
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