We are each designed for a unique and divine purpose. Live yours!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Are You Average?

Recently the Christian Writer's group to which I belong kicked of their tenth year! Our guest speaker was quite engaging and he shared and inspirational message with us. You can read a bit about him and his message HERE.

Our co-directors each offered us encouragement and urged us to commit, or recommit, ourselves to using our gift as writers by kicking things up a notch and really claim our identities as writers.

I've been thinking all week about part of the message our founder and co-director shared. He talked about a time when he was a young man selling cars. He told us he was living "the good life" as he was quite successful financially in his chosen career.

At one particular early morning sales meeting that he really did not want to attend a guest speaker, who had astutely sized him up early on, singled him out and asked him what kind of a salesman he was. Our director said he made a quite disinterested shrug and suggested he was "average."

With that the speaker drew a grid on a board with "excellent" being at the top and "worst" being at the bottom. Then he paused and drew a line in the middle of the line and wrote average next to it.

He looked right at (my director) and asked him if he was really happy being average. Again a somewhat smug and petulant shrug. The speaker urged him and the other salespeople at the meeting not to settle for average because average is "the worst of the best and the best of the worst."

I'll let you think about that for a moment.

Am I an average Christian? Are you? Honestly, sometimes I don't even rate that high on the scale. But I know this much: I don't want to be just average--the worst of the best. I want to be better than that.

I hope you'll join me in the year to come as I strive to raise the bar in my faith life.

"The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever— do not abandon the works of your hands" (Psalm 138:8 NIV).

"The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple" (Psalm 19:7 NIV).


Blessings on your journey,
Mary

5 comments:

Andrea said...

Mary,
You are not dancing politely on my feet...you are tromping with a Holy Spirit dance all over my body.
Very convicting post!!

Hugs and prayers, andrea

Barbara said...

What a thought provoking post....maybe we have been happy being average but this sure spells it out...Like you, I don't want be the best of the worst. This was great...thanks for posting it! (found you thru Andrea's blog)

Andrea said...

You have an award on arise 2 write
andrea

RCUBEs said...

And we can raise the bar...for we can do everything in His strength. Thank you for the "boost"...God bless.

Unknown said...

I want to be more then average as well. Great post, Mary