Average

In 1991 the Men's Health Magazine reported that the average male is: 5' 9" tall and 173 pounds. Is married, 1.8 years older than his wife and would marry her again. Has not completed college. Earns $28,605 per year. Prefers showering to taking a bath. Sends about 7.2 hours a week eating. Does not know his cholesterol count, but it's 211. Watches 26 hours and 44 minutes of TV a week. Takes out the garbage in his household. Prefers white underwear to colored. Cries about once a month--one fourth as much as Jane Doe. Eats his corn on the cob in circles, not straight across, and prefers his steak medium. Can't whistle by inserting his fingers in his mouth. Prefers that his toilet tissue unwind over, rather than under, the spool. Will not stop to ask for directions when he's in the car.

In a book, American Averages, written in 1980, Mead, Feinsilber, and Doubleday reported that on an average day in the USA: 1,169,863 people take a taxi, 176,810,950 eggs are laid, 21,000 gallons of oil are spilled from tankers and barges, 63,288 cars crash, 28 mailmen are bitten by dogs, 2 billion $1 bills are in circulation, industry generates nearly 1 pound of hazardous waste for every person in America, 1.1 million people are in the hospital, the U.S. Postal Service sells 90 million stamps, handles 320 million pieces of mail and delivers 833,000 packages, 180,000 people buy new radios, 500 million cups of coffee are drunk, 10,205 people give blood, $54,794 is spent to fight dandruff, bricklayers lay 22,741,000 bricks, amateurs take 19,178,000 snapshots, 9,077 babies are born, 2,466 children are bitten by dogs, 5,962 couples wed, every one of us produces nearly 6 pounds of garbage.

Now of course each one of us still makes our own decisions. We are not exactly average. None of these things may well describe you. But I wonder if a survey was taken concerning our spiritual lives, where would each one of us fall along the curve?

According to U.S.A. Today, May 25, 1994, 48% of church-goers attend an average of once a month. According to Psychology Today, 1988, the percentage of mothers who said they wanted their children to develop a loyalty to church in 1924: 50. In 1978: 22. Now it somewhere around 15%.

We often complain about how American is losing its religion. I get email forwards daily concerning the dwindling influence of Christianity in our culture. But are you contributing to it? Does your lack of daily Bible reading fall below average? What about your attendance to Bible class? What about your involvement in fellowship or evangelism? In what direction is your spiritual life going? Is the time spent with God less and less or more and more?

God is not concerned with averages. He is concerned with your soul. He wants you to be better than average. He wants you to be excellent.

"But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." ~ James 1:22