Honest standards

Leviticus 19: 35-36

Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity. Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin.

I'm very easily annoyed when someone takes stuff from me without informing me, more annoyed if a person takes without even recognising the fault of being dishonest. So imagine how very annoyed I was to find out that someone wore back a pair of slippers that has been given to me and that I had placed in church for common use every Sunday. Moreover, the individually did not even have the decency to return them and many were clueless trying to hunt for it to use.

In many ways, I'm not an easy person to work with and I imagine that I'll be a terrible boss to many. I have exacting standards of what I expect to be done and because I work fast, I expect people to be responsible and to work with an equivalent amounts of finesse. Based on the many I interact with at church, there are few I would ever employ or recommend for a job. For the honest salary that we earn, we need to be accountable for handling great work and setting even higher standards than non-christians. For the lack of salary that christian volunteers volunteer, I expect equally high standards, if not higher, because they serve God!

However, it is tragic when many Christians are often the worst to employ because their attitudes suck. I find it to be a reasonable gauge to look at an individuals attitude at doing any task in church and extrapolating it to how they will do work in the secular. Afterall, it is only a marginal difference of change because it'll take too much effort to have differing standards in different places, unless one has multiple personality disorder. Thus, when I look around at the standards of many in church, I often frown because it's a laid back, rotten attitude that I know speaks of the worst of a person's behavior at the secular place.

Frankly, an honest standard is very lacking in today's working world. Attitudes have gone down such that many just do what they think is their requirement. So many complain that they are overworked, yet, often I find them to be inefficient because they don't work fast or hard at the right moment. Look around in churches and you see people coming late and expecting to leave early. Even those who are serving, no doubt we are all volunteers, put in sloppy standards because they aren't measured by a salary scale.

This guide of honesty was given when the people were in the wilderness, and barter trade was the order of the day. Honesty, sets us apart. When our hands are clean and conscience clear, we become people who are distinguished. People can't help but give glory to God for what we do reflect an exacting standard that most don't possess.

May you live with honest standards. 
M.