Last evening I read one of those motivational posters in my son’s elementary school. It read: “Effort is the measure of success.” Call me overly critical if you want, but is effort really the measure of success? Is that the message we want to communicate to our kids? Yes, effort is important, perhaps indispensable to academic achievement, but it is hardly the measure of success. In the end, in most of life, results are the real measure of success. Telling our kids otherwise–sugarcoating this hard fact of life, in school, of all places–ill prepares them for the real world.
About Stan Guthrie
Stan Guthrie is an editor at large for Christianity Today magazine and for the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. His latest book is God's Story in 66 Verses. He also is author of All that Jesus Asks: How His Questions Can Teach and Transform Us, Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century, and A Concise Guide to Bible Prophecy. He is co-author of The Sacrament of Evangelism. Besides authoring, writing, and editing books, Stan is a literary agent, bringing together good authors, good books, and good publishers.
Stan writes the monthly Priorities colum for BreakPoint.org. He has appeared on National Public Radio's Tell Me More, WGN's Milt Rosenberg program, and many Christian shows, including The Eric Metaxas Show and Moody Radio's New Day Florida. A licensed minister and an inspirational speaker, he served as moderator for the Christian Book Expo panel discussion, Does the God of Christianity Exist, and What Difference Does It Make?
