Standards

Throughout my Mormon career, I've sat and listened to a lot of Sunday School lessons.  Sadly, by church the next week, I would've already forgotten the lesson taught the previous week.  I didn't forget them all though.  There were a few lessons that stuck with me, and I would like to tell you about one involving standards.

Standards are everywhere.  Some examples: You must be this tall to ride this roller coaster, you must have this good of a grade to get an A, you must be this attractive to be called a Jaw Breaker.  But these aren't the standards we were talking about.  This lesson was about moral standards.  The chart above (the extent of my artistic ability) compares God's standards to the worlds standards.  We know God is "the same yesterday, to day, and forever," (Hebrews 13:8) and as such, his standards never change.  The world's standards, on the other hand, are continually getting further from God's standards.  The penetrating question that was asked during this Sunday School lesson was this: "Are we only trying to be above the world's standards, or are we staying in line with God's standards?"

If we just want to be better than the world's standards, that can and will get us into trouble.  And the further down the slope we go, the steeper it gets.  May we stick to the Lord's standards and avoid the world's with all costs.

Left in the Dark?

The other night, we were driving to dinner, and their house was way out where there are no street lights.  Like way out where they lived on a dirt road.  Once we turned off the main highway, we needed to use our high beams to see better.  For some reason, we couldn't figure out how to get them to work.  We flipped every switch, pushed every button, and twisted every nob, but we still couldn't find how to turn them on.  So we spent a good while only being able to see about 10 feet in front of us.  I wouldn't recommend doing that, but don't worry, we eventually found out how to turn the high beams on.

Relating this experience to us, we're all driving in the dark through life so to speak.  We can see a few feet in front of us, but never the whole picture.  We can't let that keep us from continuing to move.  We'll find that as we push forward, God will give us more vision.  That's the only way to see more of the picture.  We know from Paul, we are supposed to "walk by faith, not by sight."  (2 Cor. 5:7).  When we have that mind set, we'll be able to fight through the night to the bright, white light (rhymes!).  Just as the wise men were guided by the star of Bethlehem, we will be guided by the light of Christ.  God will never leave us in the dark.  So find the faith inside to press forward and finish.  You will become firmer in your faith, deeper in desire, tougher in testimony.