The Measurable and the Immeasurable

Kids like to measure things.Whose pumpkin is bigger, taller, heavier? Teachers, too, like to measure. We measure growth and academic progress. How much have our students learned?  But what if the most important things we can teach our kids are the things that can't be measured at all?

Big...

bigger....

biggest!

My pumpkin is as tall as how many cubes?

Measuring circumference

The book is as long as five links. 

How many links go around the pumpkin?

Will it sink or float?

Some things, like pumpkins, are easy to measure, (and some hypotheses are easy to prove.)  It's easy to see that our kids are growing in stature, growing taller, for example.  Academic growth is a little trickier to measure-not quite so cut and dry, but still possible.  Maybe a student recognized 80% of the letters of the alphabet, and now recognizes 100%.  Those statistics show the students growing in knowledge.  But what about growing "in favor with God and man?"  What about character development? How can we measure that? I suppose we could tally the number of acts of kindness and caring we observe during the day. 

"You don't have a brown crayon? Here, you can use mine."

"He's having trouble with his page.  I'm helping him."

"We have to pray for my PawPaw.  He's sick."

One of our goals is to raise our children to be caring individuals.   On Thursday the students wore pink and brought $2 for breast cancer research.  I don't think all of the kindergartners really understood why they were wearing pink, but hopefully as they get older they will demonstrate a desire to make a positive contribution to society,to be zealous for good works.

"Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."  Matthew 5:16

Pumpkins and other concrete things are easy to measure.  Abstract things.....well, not so much. 

How can you measure things such as a parent's love for a child?

Is it as long as the sleepless nights spent at at a sick child's bedside?

Is it as high as the goals, the hopes and aspirations a parent has for a child?

As wide as arms stretched out for countless hugs?

As heavy as the burdens that parents carry as they sacrifice so that their children can have the best opportunities?

And as great as that love may be---the love of a parent for a child---there is a love that's even greater: the love of our Heavenly Father for us. It's a perfect love. Though we may fail, the Father's love never fails.

It is unending.

Unfathomable.

Immense.

Immeasurable.

So we teach our children about the physical world and all the things they can measure.We measure their growth, both physical and academic.   But we also teach them about the immeasurable things. 

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how WIDE and how LONG and HIGH and DEEP is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen"   Ephesians 3:19-21