The Mustard Seed - Lesson For living
No. 20
THE LADDER OF LIFE
PART TWO
As you climb your ladder you will meet others on their way up or their way down. Those on the way down find life to hard to handle and have gone to join the easy crowd at the bottom of the 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 the 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 the 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 the realization that you've missed the boat and let life rock away and you are still on the bottom rungs of the 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 the bottom of the heap, but you can start the 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 the ball rolling. Sure life is a tough, long haul. When I climbed the Enchanted Rock in Fredericksburg, Texas while in my mid and late 60's I didn't make it all the 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 the top just as I did. Now I teach people how to get to the top. You've got to experience the 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 the 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 the tree says I don't like it where I'm at. I think I'll stop growing. I don't like the climate here so I'll move to another state. But what if the climate is the same there? What then? What if the tree says I don't like the 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 the 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 the bottom rung of the ladder be the minimum and the top the 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 the ladder of life because you haven't given it your all." Life demands and expects your all. You cannot take from life all the time and keep expecting her to hand you everything. Pretty soon the well is going to go dry and you're going to be left holding an empty bucket waiting for the 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 the inside of you. All you have need of is on the inside of you. Now you have to persuade it to come to the surface and you do that by attending the lectures, reading the books, taking the extra classes, listening to the audio tapes and watching the 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 the 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 the way, you would be surprised at how much you already know and it's already on the inside of you. The extra time you spend on you will draw it out. You can work hard on the 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 the way it is spelled out. What is a standard? Here are a few definitions.
1.It is a basis for the 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 the 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 the whole of things. No one then has too much of anything. That is the way it was intended according to Old Testament teachings. But we've gotten greedy. Now some have too much and some have to little.
When you buy product at the market place, you want a just weight. If you bought something for $3.00 a pound you would expect to get a pound for your hard earned money. Unless of course you did not care if you were short changed or not and then you would settle for anything, which is what many people do in life. If you paid $3.00 for something less than a pound, you lost. You got the short end of the stick. When you pick up one end of the stick you also get the end opposite.
It is the same way with life. You must get your moneys worth. But if you put nothing into life you will receive back a like measurement. Nothing is a measurement. Nothing equals nothing. You get short changed. It is called a just return, a just weight. The problem is we let so many people short change us by setting standards for us that will not produce profit. Profit is a measure. The measure is determined by what you have put into the product and the product is you. Put nothing in and get nothing out. So, with no set standards of value, you will always receive a poor measurement. You will always be living on barely get along street in poverty city.
Do you remember the foundation I had talked about earlier in this presentation? It was the bedrock upon which you would stand your ladder. But so many times people build upon sinking sand. As you climb your ladder of life, the ladder simply disappears into the sinking sand beneath it. When you reach life's end, you find yourself on the same rung of the ladder as you started out with. Now that is not called progress. It is called disaster. The one thing that will drive your ladder into the sinking sand faster than anything else is the weight of regret. Regretting that you have done nothing with your time and opportunity up until this day of your life. Everything looks bleak and blah, no hope in sight. Ah, but there is hope. You can start again. All you have to do is move your ladder onto solid rock. And may I suggest to you that it is closer than you think. The bedrock could mean truth, integrity, hope, self worth, a right attitude, a positive outlook on life; a help to others and the list is endless. You can make your own list. Make sure it is a list of things that will withstand the storms of life and prove themselves to be faithful to those who will embrace them.
Have you ever seen someone holding a ladder for someone else to climb? Sadly you will seldom see that in today's society. Have you ever been asked to hold the ladder while someone else climbed it? Hard to do isn't it? And the reason is because we don't want any one else to get ahead of us. If you don't think so, watch the traffic on a busy freeway at quitting time. Everybody wants to be first in line. Here is the key. No man is an island unto himself. You cannot pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. If you want to be first, be last. Now that is diametrically opposed to man's philosophy. But God knew man would want to be first so He put that principle in the Bible for man. But, you must USE this principle when climbing your own life's ladder. Who cares if another person gets to the top before you? That's what it is all about. Believe me, if you will help enough other people to get to the top, there will come the time when you to, will be at the top. There will always come the time for reaping if you will plant great disciplines in your life. As you grow, share with others what you have learned. Begin mentoring someone. What a change that will make in you when you get you out of the way by putting others first.
Now why this Lesson For Living? It is to get you to start looking at your life and where you are right now. Are you where you should be? Are you where you want to be? Only you can answer that. It has been my experience with people that most are not where they want to be. But a better question is are you where you SHOULD be? To answer that would require some work on your behalf because no one else can give you the answer. Here is one very important rule. Don't compare where you are in life to where others are. It is foolhardy. Find you where YOU are supposed to be. Read the books on development. Go to the workshops and seminars. Listen to the audiotapes and view the videos. Listen to the sermons and bible studies. Above all, get WISDOM. You would be surprised where it will lead you. Start working on YOU. What a difference that will make in your journey.
I Wish You The Best Of Success,
Dr. Wm. G. Seavey
Email the Doctor for lecturing at winnow@earthlink.net
Web site www.thewinnerscircle.org
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About the Author
Dr. Seavey is the author of Lessons For Living and several workbooks all relating to personal development and growth. He leads you through the maze of negativism using age old disciplines and principles teaching you how to live a successful lifestyle one day at a time.