Last week while visiting my parents, I helped Dad hang some large, framed pictures. I know Mom sometimes accuses him of just driving a nail randomly, but he pulled out a collapsible ruler and a laser level and we used them to make sure that both pictures were hung level and at the same height.

Standards.

Without the standard measurements on that ruler or the natural truth that light travels in a straight line, those pictures may not have – would not have – hung level or parallel. Even if I looked at them and said, “They are level to me.” Trust me, I have tried that argument.

Standards.

In Axis, Alabama, in the northern part of Mobile County, there is a stone. This stone is not an ordinary sandstone. This stone is a marker. Andrew Ellicott surveyed this area and placed this stone on the 31st Parallel in 1799 establishing the border of the United States and Spanish Florida. The north side of the stone, inscribed in English, states, “U.S. Lat. 31, 1799.” The south side of the stone, inscribed in Spanish, states, “Dominio de S.M. Carlos IV, Lat. 31, 1799.” Not only did Ellicott’s Stone become the boundary between Spanish Territory and the United States, but became the standard for the current border between Florida and Alabama.  Ellicott’s Stone also became the standard for many later surveys.

Standards.

What would we do without standards? How could we settle disputes of land? How could we settle court cases? Without a standard, how could we know how God, the Creator, wants His creation to live?

Thankfully, God gave us a standard. “The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.” (John 12:48)

This year, we will come back to The Standard.  Are we living up to what He says?

-Scott