John and Elsie were an elderly couple from a nearby town who would regularly come out to our farm to buy eggs while I was growing up. John was a stately, quiet, reflective person, but Elsie was just the opposite. Opinionated and fussy, you heard her coming with her old-fashioned basket on her arm, laughing, cackling, and commenting to John about this and that all the way from the car to the house. John and Elsie would always “sit a spell” while my mother would fill Elsie’s basket with the number of eggs requested.
Good measure was a way of life for my mother over the many years that John and Elsie came to the farm. She consistently put extra eggs in Elsie’s basket. Elsie never thanked mother for the good measure, but came to expect the extra eggs. One day my mother must have miscounted, because on the next trip, Elsie fussed and fumed about how she had been “shortchanged” several eggs the last time around. Because of the dozens and dozens of “extra” eggs Elsie had received through the years, you or I may have chosen to say nothing at all about the shortfall, but not Elsie! She wanted the matter rectified! So mother graciously complied, even adding an extra egg or two on top of the “shortchanging.”
Times were definitely simpler then, but at least the era gave people an opportunity to put into practice Jesus’ teaching about good measure. Unfortunately, in this age of impersonal prepackaging and mass marketing, many children haven’t been given the opportunity to see firsthand what good measure is all about. “Give, and it will be given to you,” Jesus said, “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Luke 6:38/NIV).
Our Lord’s “good measure” teaching can be applied to every area of living. In church work. At the office. In the shop. On the playing field. In the schoolroom. In the stewardship of our resources. I’m thankful I had the opportunity to learn about good measure early in life. Had it not been for John and Elsie, I may not have learned nearly as soon.
January/February, 1990