The Mustard Seed - Lesson For living No. 20 THE LADDER OF LIFE PART TWOAs you climb your ladder you will meet others on their way up or their way down. Those on
way down find life to hard to handle and have gone to join easy crowd at bottom of ladder just milling around waiting for something for nothing to show up so they can grab it with minimum effort. But not you. You continue your upward climb taking those with you headed in same direction and with purpose in mind.
When is a good time to check your progress? Right now would be a good time and everyday thereafter if you are interested in maximum performance. If not, you can just lie around and let years creep up on you, and believe me, they will before you know it. But suppose that has happened. Suppose you are older now and have come to realization that you've missed boat and let life rock away and you are still on bottom rungs of ladder having made no significant progress. Is it too late? Absolutely not. You can start where you are and with what you've got even if it is nothing. You may be on bottom of heap, but you can start forward motion. All it takes is a little push. Hopefully I can provide that push for you as your personal coach and mentor. All you have to do is email me at winnow@earthlink.net and we can get ball rolling. Sure life is a tough, long haul. When I climbed Enchanted Rock in Fredericksburg, Texas while in my mid and late 60's I didn't make it all way in one fell swoop. I had to stop every once in a while to catch up. Life is like that but you can make it to top just as I did. Now I teach people how to get to top. You've got to experience top before you can bring others with you.
On a scale of 1-10 where are you relative to where you should be? Where should you be at age 25, 35, 50 and older? How far should you go on this success journey? Here is a great question for you. How tall should a tree grow? And answer is, as tall as it wants to. Have you ever heard of a tree growing just half way and stopping? I haven't. Suppose tree says I don't like it where I'm at. I think I'll stop growing. I don't like climate here so I'll move to another state. But what if climate is same there? What then? What if tree says I don't like weather here? It is to hot, to cold, to wet and to dry. I'm quitting this game called life. Do you know that is exactly what people do? They complain about seasons of life when that is all they have. Sometimes you just gotta put up with where you are at in life and get on with it. Stop complaining. It doesn't help if nothing changes because of your complaints.
Now let bottom rung of ladder be minimum and top maximum. Use that for your standard of measure. You say, "I've not gone very far." "How hard have you tried?" I would ask. And you would say, "Not very hard." Then I would say, "You aren't where you should be on ladder of life because you haven't given it your all." Life demands and expects your all. You cannot take from life all time and keep expecting her to hand you everything. Pretty soon well is going to go dry and you're going to be left holding an empty bucket waiting for well to fill back up. It is time to start giving life everything you have. You're probably wondering where IT is. Well IT is on inside of you. All you have need of is on inside of you. Now you have to persuade it to come to surface and you do that by attending lectures, reading books, taking extra classes, listening to audio tapes and watching videos, all of which, should pertain to personal growth; your personal growth. And it wouldn't hurt to sit in on a few good bible lessons and sermons. Who knows what that might bring out of you? You'll never know until you try. Take initiative. Don't settle for someone else's plan for your life. YOU be a product of your own conclusion. STOP letting people sell you on plans that will not produce anything for you. By way, you would be surprised at how much you already know and it's already on inside of you. The extra time you spend on you will draw it out. You can work hard on job and make a living. You can work hard on you and make a fortune.
Let's examine your standard of measure that I mentioned earlier. It is very important to your growth. If you have no standards by which to measure progress, how will you know if you are ascending or descending? Or, how will you know if you have arrived if you don't know where you are going? The Bible says, "By your standard of measure it shall be measured to you." The word shall is a mandatory clause. It means it is going to happen just way it is spelled out. What is a standard? Here are a few definitions.
1.It is a basis for measure of value given. 2.A standard is something established for use as a rule or basis of comparison in measuring quality. 3.A standard is certain criterion set for usages or practices (moral standards) 4.It is a level of excellence, attainment etc. regarded as a measure of adequacy.
So, what you set as a standard for your life determines income from your outflow. If you have poor standards, you will receive in like kind. Set poor standards and receive poor measurements. It will not be a full measurement. It will not be running over. The Bible again says that if you give, your return will be overflowing. It will be a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over. I would call that a good measure. If you will establish early on in life good standards, that is, those that will produce good results, then your end result will be a running over of good, and more than you can handle. Jim Rohn says if you want to balance your checkbook, give a chunk of it away at various times. That is a good standard to live by. It brings balance to whole of things. No one then has too much of anything. That is way it was intended according to Old Testament teachings. But we've gotten greedy. Now some have too much and some have to little.
