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A Standard of Excellence
Sometimes, the most profound thoughts come to me at the most mundane times. Perhaps the still monotony of performing very ordinary tasks unclog the channel through which God communicates with me.
I suppose it makes sense. After all, when you’re charged with enthusiasm or lost in total concentration with a given task, you block out outside distractions. Perhaps an all-knowing God gives us the boring or trivial jobs for that very reason.
Take gravy, for instance. Gravy? Yes. Not long ago I was making gravy for supper. As I tossed the flour into the hot drippings, sprinkled in the salt and pepper, and began to stir, the thought came to me, “I know good gravy.”
Now that doesn’t really sound earthshaking. And it isn’t. But it leads to a very good chain of thoughts—if I follow.
I am originally from the Ozarks. And I come from a family of good gravy makers. My mother could make gravy like you wouldn’t believe. I have seen and eaten good gravy—I mean good stuff.
I haven’t always made good gravy, but it continues to improve. Mine is pretty good. You can talk brown gravy, white gravy, roast gravy, or racehorse gravy; all can be good, and I’ve had the best of each. The point is, I’ve been exposed to excellent gravy.
It is difficult for me to imagine what a trial it would be to try to make gravy if I’d never been around it. I mean, I can still mess it up occasionally, even knowing how it should turn out. But having had the best, I always strive toward the example.
Gravy is just the beginning. As I’ve thought along that line, I received a letter from my late Aunt Thelma saying she’d made a couple of her strawberry pies. Now, everything Aunt Thelma made was as close to perfection as was humanly possible. But her strawberry pie! Well, it was beyond expression.
As I answered her letter, I tried to explain these thoughts to her and had to end (quite lamely, I fear), “Maybe I’m not making it clear. I guess what I’m saying is, even if I never made a strawberry pie as good as yours, I’m glad I’ve had your excellence to use as a guidepost. Because of that, mine is better than it would have been. My compliments and sincere gratitude are yours.”
Guess what? You can go beyond pie. As a matter of fact, you can go beyond gastronomics (there is more to life than keeping the machine fueled, after all). Jesus said,
I recently heard a speaker in a revival. One thing he said was, “Don’t tell me what you believe, show me how you live.” Boy, did that hit me!
“Show me how you live.” What’s the recipe for life? What example do I follow? Or, even better, what is the very best, most excellent example of “life-living” to which I can aspire?
As I think along those lines, I am reminded of a verse we all learned in childhood:
“When a task is once begun,
never leave it till it’s done.
Be the labor great or small,
do it well, or not at all.”
How well-done is task done well? If a task is seemingly insignificant as learning to tie a shoe, or making up one’s bed in childhood, is to be done as well as possible, how much more so is the business of life?
Of course, it’s no secret that children learn from example. From the first smile to the most difficult trigonometry calculation, a child’s life is learning by watching and doing. It has been said, “play is a child’s work.” But even in play, he first watches and then imitates.
At our eighteenth, or twenty-fifth, or fortieth birthday, do we automatically draw that tried-and-true system? I think we continuously modify it and improve upon it, though I doubt anyone ever totally stops the process of imitation.
Perhaps as we grow older, we find that our imitations are more internalized, rather than the motion and mannerisms of childhood adaptations. And perhaps, too, in growing older, we begin to find fewer and fewer people we want to copy.
If I look at people I like or admire, I always find at least one small character flaw. (Who thinks weepy strawberry pie is the epitome of strawberry-piedom?) If I try to set up an imaginary example, I can’t ever be sure that achievement is possible. My imagination isn’t big enough to contain all the best that would be necessary, and my recipe might inadvertently leave the salt out of the gravy, perhaps not even knowing there is such an ingredient.
Oh, but just as I have my mother’s gravy, or my Aunt Thelma’s strawberry pie for my culinary examples, I have a role model for my life. And would you believe my good fortune? I just happen to have the recipe book as well!
Jesus came to earth for our salvation. But He also showed us a better way to live. A more perfect way. A true standard of excellence to emulate. And our loving Father, knowing we are only human and sometimes forget the ingredients or confuse the method, very kindly inspired men to give us the recipe book, the Holy Bible.
When we have the example and the recipe, all we have to do is roll up our sleeves and plunge into the task of life. Taking our meager or overflowing ingredients, we must make the very best product we can.
Maybe our life won’t be perfect today. Maybe we’ll burn it or get it too thick tomorrow. But as we strive, we have the assurance that we have a “grand exemplar” after which we may pattern our life. The method won’t change. The ingredients are exact. The standard has been set—a standard of excellence.
