As you may know there is a color standard in the print industry called Pantone colors. You can reference PMS #277C and everyone knows what you want. That however is a mechanical ink mix, there are other standards in the digital world, RGB (Red Green Blue - monitor display colors) and CYMK (cyan, yellow, magenta, black - some computer printers) colors are the two best examples. Sometimes you have to convert from one standard too the other. Recently that is where I found myself.
A friend has a print job I am helping him with and his print specific's PMS Reflex Blue. Great, that is a common color should not be a problem, then I begin to look for a PMS Reflex Blue to CMYK computer conversion to use in my software. Problem - there is no direct conversion between Reflex Blue and CMYK. You can get close, but you can not get it perfect. Eventually I found what appears to be the closest conversion and went with that one.
As I mentioned above a CMYK color is a mix of cyan, yellow, magenta, and black. A% cyan, B% yellow, C% magenta, and D% black equals the color you want. Well when I thought a bit more about that our life is sort of that way too. A % God, B % Family / Friends, C % Job, D % Recreation, E % Rest, F%.... Our goal in life should be to allow God to make up the perfect mix of percentage for us. Obviously God should be first, and most important, but where God's percentage for a religious professional is A % + C % , it is A % only in mine. That does not mean God expects less of me, but that my daily make up is going to be different then someone who works in a professional ministry position. That fact does not make me, or them, wrong or better or worse, but just different. My job takes me away from directly working for God, not that I can not work for Him on my job, but that is not my primary duty while there. Some people do not marry so for them the God % is A % + some part of B%. Some people mix God into their recreation (D %) and get a percent of A % + some part of D %. You get the idea. Every person has a special combination of percentage of the habits, occupations, activities, relationships, and parts that make up their lives.
My point in all of this is that much like a color conversion from one standard (PMS to CMYK for example), not every combination in people can be converted from one standard to another (i.e.. The world's standard to God's). Many times to be converted to God's standard we have to give up large part's of our previous life (world's standard's) to become the combination that He created us for. Our response should not be - well God needs to change His standards to my combination. We should be able to look at God's standard and see how much better His new combination for our life is then our current worldly combination. Then allow Him to draw up or combine our life to His combination and standard.
However, that is not human nature. Human nature is too say - My standard is right, and God has to move to me not me to Him. I am right, He is wrong. Once we make the prior statement we guarantee that we will always be a few shades off of the standard that God has for us. He maybe be able to use us, but we are never going to perfectly fit what He has for us as we are a bit off. Over time that few degrees of shading becomes more and more obvious. In time, we will either move toward His combination or turn from Him entirely and return to the world's standard. Again my belief is that we as human's require acceptance and companionship to remain anywhere.
The problem is that we are all a few shades off. I know I am, and I assume you are too. My goal for the day is to have God show me some things I can do to get closer to His standard and further from my / the world's standard. I believe that somewhere in the above ramble there is probably some useful knowledge, even if I am a bad conduit of it.
Have a wonder day and I pray that God show you both His standard and conversion chart today and then you allow Him to begin the work of complete conversion to His standard, not just the close approximation that we have all been satisfied with in our lives in the past.
