We live in a world that measures externals. Pastors are measured in terms of their last sermon. Churches oftentimes measure how they’re doing based on attendance, size of the building, the number of programs operating, and the size of the weekly offering. Metrics are not wrong or an exercise in futility. They can be an important way to focus on what is important. The bigger issue is whether or not we’re measuring what matters.

Proverbs 4:23 says, “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” This passage to the importance of metrics, but it’s about measuring our internal heart, not externals. Proverbs points to the important task of guarding our heart because the motivations of the heart dictate the trajectory of our lives.

How do you guard your heart? How do we make sure that we’re measuring what matters as people? How do we measure how our heart is doing?

Three years ago I was flying back to Regina from meetings in Vancouver. Our departure from Vancouver was uneventful other than the 40+ junior high students returning from a field trip who boarded the plane with us. Approaching Regina, the pilot informed us that our landing might be a little rougher than normal due to thunderstorms in the area. As we made our final approach for landing we could see that the thunderstorms had moved east of the city and while there were a few bumps it wasn’t that bad, at least not until we were about 30 feet off the ground with the runway clearly in site below us. Just when you would expect the rev of the engines to subside, they roared to life and instead of descending we were headed on a sharp incline taking off again. These junior high students were less than calm, and even seasoned travelers were grabbing for the lunch bag in the seat pocket in front of them. We ascended away from the airport heading off to the south east . After what seemed like an eternity the pilot apologetically explained what had happened. Due to the residual effects of the thunderstorm, the instrument panel on the Boeing 737 flashed a wind shear warning and he indicated that he would try landing from another direction.

Wikipedia describes a wind shear as a difference in wind speed and/or direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere. It has particularly drastic affects on aircraft that are either in the final stages of landing or the initial stages of take off, often resulting in a crash and certain loss of life. In 1988 the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration mandated that all commercial aircraft have on-board wind shear detection systems by 1993. The result of these efforts was immediate. Between 1964 and 1985, wind shear directly caused or contributed to 26 major civil transport aircraft accidents in the U.S. that led to 620 deaths and 200 injuries. Since 1995, the number of major civil aircraft accidents caused by wind shear has dropped to approximately one every ten years. Talk about the importance of measuring what matters!

What if aircraft instrumentation measured everything but wind shear? History bears out the catastrophic consequences. I suggest that there’s a parallel to our personal and corporate spiritual life. Could it be that measuring wind shear on an aircraft is similar to guarding our heart, measuring how our heart is doing? Measuring externals is important but not at the expense of measuring how our heart is doing. When we measure everything but spiritual “wind shear”, the results are catastrophic – personally and corporately – there are casualties – we become casualties. What are you measuring personally? Are you measuring what matters? What is your church measuring? Are they measuring what matters? More importantly, how do you measure what matters? The temptation is to go the easy route and measure only the externals. Resist the temptation! If I could only measure one thing, I’d rather measure what matters poorly than measure the wrong things well!