Percentage-wise maybe we aren’t doing all that bad.
Math never was our best subject. We got along fine with addition and subtraction, but high school geometry set us back, and we barely passed college algebra. So, accuracy of our calculations may be more philosophical than mathematically sound.
Our record of paying for going faster than the posted speed limit is embarrassingly bad. However, thinking about how many times our pedal has exceeded what the sign said it should be, and not being cited, we’re well above the 99 percentile.
Seldom does a day go by when we don’t make some error in our job, whether in number transposition, wrong date, miscalculation, misspelled word, etc. Yet, considering the seemingly very high quantity of things that pass through our head in a day, without any prejudice, accuracy would surpass 99 percent.
When we were getting on a dozen or more horses daily, and they were all young and untrained, we could generally go a year, sometimes longer, without falling off. Even in the last two years of training customer horses, when we fell off five times, that would still put us well over the 99 percent success rate figuring the times we mounted.
In college, 90 percent was generally considered an “A,” 80 percent a “B,” etc. In some classes, instructors graded “on the curve” giving those who scored the highest-number-correct an “A,” even if it was well below 90 percent. The remainder of the class would be graded lower.
A highway sign across the highway from our ranch headquarters states: “God grades on the Cross, not the Curve.” We calculate about that every day as we ride our horse by it.
According to Scriptures, Christ died for our sins. Likewise, we are expected to follow His Commandments.
Those with 100 percent are supposed to be Heaven shoo-ins, but our prayer is He’ll let some with 99 percent slip through.
Reminds us of Leviticus 4:22: “When one hath sinned against any of the Commandments of the Lord his God, concerning things which should not be done, he is guilty.”
Fortunately, certain reprieve is promised in First Peter 2:24: “He bore our sins in His body on the Cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds believers will be healed.”