The Measure of a Life

Over the week my heart has been cradling this question – What is the measure of my life?

There are moments in life when everything around me seem to come to a standstill, when the world becomes a black & white picture. And the only things that are real and alive at that moment are the words being whispered in my heart.

These moments are life-changing. They are the catalysts for paradigm shifts, repositioning, and re-prioritizing.

This is such a moment for me.

As these words – What is the measure of my life? – swirl around my heart, they create a tidal pool that enlarges my vision and stirs up a desire for something more.

There are so many ways in which we can measure our lives. We live in a generation that makes it so easy.

I have measured my life in many ways and with many things, but this week I cannot help but wonder – What would my life look like if Love became its measuring rod?

What if, at the end of all things, the only accomplishments in my life that had any value were the things I did out of love? What if the only moments in my life that really counted for something were the moments where love was present?

If I took my life and held it up to the measuring rod of Love, would it count for anything?

And as I sit here in this ever-widening tidal pool, refusing to let its intensity and vastness scare me back into the comfort of self-sufficiency, I see that everything I have built apart from Love look just like castles built on sand – child’s play, perishable, lacking substance.

So I have resolved to make love the measure of my life. And when my life is measured, I want it to meet the mark. But I look at myself and I know that I do not have it within me to be all that I want to be. My heart cannot be love poured out all the time, my motives cannot be constantly pure, my temper unceasingly sweet.

But what I do have when I reach the end of myself, is the source of unlimited and purest love. The very essence of love. Love incarnate. Jesus.

As I stand there seeing my own emptiness, He stands there with arms outstretched, waiting to pour all the measure of His love into me. To be able to live a life of love, all it takes is to start with a very simple daily prayer from Ephesians 3 – “Lord, I pray that I would be rooted and established in love, so that I may grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses understanding – that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

His love poured out into my heart, to be poured out to a thirsty world. There is no other way that I can stand up to the measuring rod of love, because such love is ferocious and savage and unrelenting; no weak and paltry human attempts will survive in the face of such intensity.

Today is Thanksgiving Day, the time of year that I like to reflect on all the many blessings I am thankful for.

This year, I am adding a new element to this occasion (on top of the turkey and ham, of course!). This year, and I think for every year after this, I am going to reflect on how much of my year was spent in love, for love, through love. I am going to measure my life with Love’s measuring rod, and make notes on motives and attitudes that need adjustment in my life.

I want Love to be the measure of my life, because Love is the only thing that never fails – even fairy tales know that “Love is the most powerful magic of all.”

What is the measure of your life? What would your life look like if Love became its measuring rod?

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Idream of Eden. We were made for the Garden and the full pleasure of paradise. We got separated at Eden and we spend our whole lives searching for a way back into that secret paradise. All of life's pursuit + pain + questioning can be traced back to man's search for home. Our deepest instincts tell us that we are not home outside of this reality, and our souls will never stop searching until we return. Only there will we find rest and our true being. There, we begin to dream again the dreams that have laid asleep in our hearts all along.

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