It’s my birthday! I’m now 54 years old. Like most of you know, at this age, there’s not much difference from last year, or the year before that. However, birthdays are a great time to take an assessment of life. You look at your health, your weight, your finances, your career, your marriage, your kids — everything you think reflects on you and compare them to a completely made up set of standards designed to make you feel good about yourself. Well, at least that’s what has always worked for me in the past.
When looking at my life I really develop two views. The one is that it hasn’t been too bad. The other is that it could have been at lot better. On the one hand, I didn’t have much to work with. On the other hand, I wasted every opportunity I was given. One speaks of battles won, while the other speaks of challenges never attempted. I don’t know if you’ve ever had these opposing views in your life, but I waver back and forth between them trying to settle on how I should really feel about myself. Over my 54 years of life I’ve never come to the place where I have actually made an accurate assessment — ever!
One of the reasons I cannot land on a final assessment is the game is not over. I could have one of those defining moments in life coming up. I could become a hero, or have a great impact on society, or I could discover the next life-changing truth. Most likely though, I will plod along at my current rate, struggling with my value to those around me and my own feelings of self worth.
Another reason my assessments don’t stick is that when I am down I am trying to gather to myself all the things I’ve done that make me feel better about myself. I do this by looking back over my life and thinking of the things that, by my estimation, were of worth. It helps not to compare them with others or look too closely at my motivations. If I just take them at face value they help bolster my esteem.
Then there are those times when I’m thinking pretty highly of myself. That’s when, with the aid of others, I realize that pride has slipped in and my self-image has been blown up like a balloon. Other people act like needles though, to burst my ego. The decent brings me back down closer to reality. I thank everyone for the constant reminders I am human.
One thing that has become a part of my life in these 54 years is that I no longer appreciate people bragging on me. Partly because so many try to use bragging to develop a false relationship with me, but mostly because the things they brag about are not great things. They are just things any decent person ought to do. Am I so despicable that people congratulate me for acting close to normal? Thanks again for the help.
So as this day marks another time of self-assessment, I’ve decided this year to use God’s way and simply make no assessment. This is because 1st Corinthians 4:5 tells us, “Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.” Only God can make a correct assessment of my life. All along the way he will only encourage me to do better. He will guide me into more and more labor for his righteousness and he will correct me when I need correcting. However, if God, in his wisdom, chooses to be patient and long-suffering with me, maybe this should be my attitude also.
Although I can make daily judgments and moment by moment I should assess my actions and my motives, I cannot assess my life. This is reserved for the one who gave me life. His judgment is true and righteous. I must work to bring every thought, word and deed under his watchful eye and assess their value in the light of eternal importance. Without this perspective, I could use any value system I choose to make all my actions look good. At least to me.
Sometimes I am too hard on myself. While other times I’m to easy on myself. Apparently my self-assessments are simply based on my felt need at the time. More rightly though, I ought to just seek the Lord and develop a life of complete submission to his will. All my achievements won’t come into play as much in the final assessment of my life. However, I will be judged directly as to whether I have lived in submission to the Lord’s will or not.
To sum it all up, it’s a matter of perspective. Our assessments all depend on the things we include in them — weighing the bad and the good. With each item we choose to include, we also impose our own scale of how bad the bad was and how good the good was. It’s not just counting the number of bads against the number of goods. We use sliding scales to weigh our thoughts and actions. Our estimations are so faulty, we even feel bad about how we play with the numbers to always make them come out in our favor. The Bible calls this self-justification. We are very good at this.
Is there a way to get a correct assessment of where you are in life? Yes there is, but like I said, you’ve got to get outside yourself and allow God to help. Our example is Jesus and our yardstick is the Bible. When using these assessment tools we always find ourselves lacking. So the only assessment we can determine by this analysis is we must do better.
So as I sit here writing my Birthday Blog for this year, I have finally found a self-assessment I will not waver on, one that I can stick to, and one that isn’t just based on how I feel at the time. It is God’s assessment, “Do better.”