So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. Romans 7:12
What is the most important tool in your toolbox? What’s the most important gadget hanging from the pegboard in your garage? What’s the one thing that, if you didn’t faithfully use it, would render every one of your projects a total disaster?
Give up?
It’s your tape measure.
I’m not sure why, but I have a collection of tape measures. I’ve got a small one in my desk drawer at the office, one permanently in my tool belt that hangs in the garage, one in the kitchen catchall drawer, and one lying loose in my workshop. Although I also own an assortment of other measuring tools—hundred-foot tapes, framing squares, quick squares, and various rulers and straight edges—I always make sure I have a tape measure around.
Your tape measure is the most important tool in your workshop because it represents the standard by which everything else is gauged. The little inch marks on this tool are unarguable. They are exact and they are true. These marks are the law. Debate them at your own peril.
Whenever I cut a large number of boards that were to be trimmed to the same length, I create a “pattern board,” cut to the exact length I needed, and write a large letter “P” on it with a big, black marker. Then I use that “pattern board” to measure each of the other boards waiting to be cut. Our daughters, as my construction assis- tants, heard me say it many times: “Don’t misplace the special board with the letter ‘P’ written on it. I need to use it again.”
I have a good friend who was cutting rafters for the first house he ever built. Instead of using a pattern board, he cut one board, then used it to mark the next one. Then after he cut that board, he’d use it to measure the next one. By the time he had cut all of his rafters—about thirty of them—his last board was almost a full three inches longer than the first.
Here’s the lesson: if you want to be a good carpenter, you’ve got to have a standard. The same is true for you as a man and as a dad.
The Bible is, for us, a standard. Starting with the law—as summarized in the Ten Commandments—of the Old Testament and continuing through nearly every chapter, the Scripture is our tape measure. It provides mankind with a trustworthy image of what’s right and what’s wrong. In fact, the apostle Paul wrote, “I would not have known sin if it were not for the law” (v. 7). God’s law is the unchanging standard that shows us how far we have fallen from the mark. It also gives us a picture of what it looks like to get back on track.
When your children are small, before they experience the truth and the discipline of God’s law, they have something they can count on—a pattern board. This is you, God’s man, cut to exact measurements. You show your family what God’s tape measure has shown you—growth toward Christlikeness through personal confession, trusting faith, and the Father’s grace.
When you use God’s standards, building a lovely house is well within your reach. By the way, I recommend that twenty-four-foot, one-inch-wide Stanley® tape. It makes a much better hissing sound when it retracts. Just be sure to keep your finger out of the way. You can easily pinch yourself when that thing gets all the way home. And this really hurts.