Saturday, October 26, 2019

day no. 14,978: faith is flexible, rigor is rigid

"Success depends in large part on the ability to adapt—to proactively shape changing events to our advantage as well as to react quickly to constantly changing conditions. It is physically impossible to sustain a high tempo of activity indefinitely, although clearly there will be times when it is advantageous to push personnel and equipment to the limit. The tempo of war will fluctuate from periods of intense combat to periods in which activity is limited to information gathering, replenishment, or redeployment."

Adapting to the ever changing lay of the land at the hand and will of God is our key to success. We must be proactive in determining the shape of the clay that is handed to us as well as maintaining a flexibility in reacting to whatever changes are made to the clay as we are attempting to mold it.

Rigidity ends in destruction. A rigid plan which cannot account for change will fail under the pressure of the twists and turns reality ends up taking.

A paperclip does not break after being bent back and forth because it gets too soft. It breaks because it becomes too rigid. The term is work-hardening. The metal is becoming more and more tense and stiff as a result of being worked which results in it becoming more and more rigid which ultimately results, under continued bending, to breakage. The paper clip cannot sustain that much change. It's ever increasing rigidity is its undoing. And it will be ours as well if we do not proactively account for God and react to His will quickly, not pausing to be shocked that our carefully calculated plans could have turned out other than how we planned them.

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