day no. 15,167: offramp to hell

Matthew 7:13-14
Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

The high way leads to eternal life, but there are many opportunities to veer off along the way, any number of tourist traps and offramps to distract you from remaining on the straight and narrow.

day no. 15,166: where poor decisions outrank indecision

"Moral courage is the ability to make and carry out the decision regardless of personal cost. It is different from—and rarer than—physical courage. The cost of physical courage may be injury or death, whereas the cost of moral courage may be the loss of friends, popularity, prestige, or career opportunities. The burden of conflicting responsibilities in combat—responsibility for the lives of subordinates, support for peers, loyalty to superiors, duty to the Nation—can be heavy. Our educational efforts should lead potential leaders to work through the proper resolution of such conflicts in peacetime. Leaders often need to make morally correct decisions in combat, but there will rarely be time for deep moral or ethical contemplation on the battlefield...

An effective leader willingly takes on the risks which come with military responsibilities. In that light, the greatest failing of a leader is a failure to lead. Two steadfast rules apply. First, in situations clearly requiring independent decisions, a leader has the solemn duty to make them. Whether the subsequent action succeeds or fails, the leader has made an honorable effort. The broad exercise of initiative by all Marines will likely carry the battle in spite of individual errors. Second, inaction and omission based on a failure of moral courage are much worse than any judgment error reflecting a sincere effort to act. Errors resulting from such moral failings lead not only to tactical setbacks but to the breakdown of faith in the chain of command." -- MCDP 1-3: Tactics

Leaders must lead. They are privileged and burdened by the necessity of leading. To be a leader is to step out first. It is to take upon yourself the burden of other's responsibility to obey you.  

Leadership must have the backbone to stand up straight and decide. It must be more comfortable with being wrong than being passive. It must embrace initiative rather than indecision. It is better for a leader to misstep than to not step up. It is better to slip up than to refuse to step out. 

Leadership is lonely. It must make, on occasion, unpopular decisions. It must endure criticism, second-guessing and watching others pay the costs of your decisions. It must take into account what it costs others and yet still ask others to pay those costs.

Sins of commission are still sins, but you can point a moving object in a different direction. Sins of omission can be excused by saying, "Hey! I didn't DO anything!" But the obvious reply then should be, "That's the problem! You didn't DO anything. ANY thing would have been better than the nothing you did."

day no. 15,165: anticipation and improvisation

"There are two basic ways to adapt. Sometimes we have enough situational awareness to understand a situation in advance and take preparatory action. This is anticipation. At other times we have to adapt to the situation on the spur of the moment without time for preparation. This is improvisation. To be fully adaptable, we must be able to do both." 
-- MCDP 1-3: Tactics

Proverbs 4:26
Ponder the path of your feet;
then all your ways will be sure.

If you're watching where you're going, you'll get to where you want to go. Anyone with eyes in their head can look straight ahead and see what's next. You don't just point your toes where you wants to goes. You prepare for the obstacles you perceive ahead. 

But some things come out of nowhere and there's no way you could have seen them coming.

Proverbs 16:9
The heart of man plans his way,
but the Lord establishes his steps.

When the ground gives way where you didn't expect or the path proves more difficult than you anticipated, you must possess the ability to improvise or die. Either you pitch your old plans or you perish. Some prefer to have their plans pried from their cold, dead hands rather than adapt to the steps the Lord has established. If you refuse to be where you are by insisting on being where you'd like to be, you will end up where you don't want to go.

day no. 15,164: penfold... penelope page turns tenfold

Penelope Page Van Voorst,

Say, "Goodbye" to single digits and, "Hello!" to the last year of using one set of hands to communicate your years, because today, you are ten years old!

You love to bake and cook and be involved in the planning, preparation and serving of meals. You are a prolific writer and have filled up a google drive folder full of fantastical stories. You are an aspiring pianist and regularly compose songs which you delight in performing. You almost always have a book with you and read ravenously. You are smart as a whip and cute as a button. You are growing in independence and dependence in all of the right ways. You are taking responsibility for your self and for those around you. You want to serve and use your freedoms to bind yourself to others. Your curly hair is just game over. You are a beautiful young lady, yet you place little confidence in your outward appearance. Just the other night you made the comment that you are happy that God is growing you in outward beauty, but you are most interested in growing in internal beauty. You have been given a wise heart and I'm so excited to watch you grow into it.

Proverbs 31:28-31
Her children rise up and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many women have done excellently,
but you surpass them all.”

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands,
and let her works praise her in the gates.

You desire to be a wise women. You want to be like your mom. I can think of no better goal in life. She is a great mother and you have been blessed not only to have her as a mom, but to realize the gift you have in her at such a young age in wanting to emulate her and be like her.

I love you, little lady. I love being your dad. I love that you love me. I'm so glad God made us family. You are a Van Voorst through and through and I can't wait to see how you advance the baton we're working hard to pass to you. You are going to be an awesome wife and mother someday. I can't wait to hold your children and tell them about how much fun I had being their mom's daddy.

You're just the best... and you're only gettin' better!
I love you,
Dad

day no. 15,163: a world of warcraft

"Adaptability is the law which governs survival in war as in life—war being but a concentrated form of the human struggle against environment." —B. H. Liddell Hart

Warfighting is merely the tangible manifestation of a greater reality: we live in a world at war. There is enmity in the form of imposing wills pressing upon each other and this friction is felt.

Genesis 3:15
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
He shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise His heel.

War has been hard-wired into the human story by God since the Fall as observed in the early verses of Genesis 3. This struggle is real and is the undercurrent of every other legitimate struggle in existence. This is the baseline of all enmity. This is where it comes from and defines the jerseys of each team.

"God's will is that Christ's Kingdom should be encompassed with many enemies, His design being to keep us in a state of constant warfare." -- John Calvin

Our adversary, the devil, is a prowler and he is as crafty as the day is long. 

Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He craftily adapts to the world as God directs. If God provides blessings, he tries to spin them as curses. If God curses, he attempts to paint them in the light of blessings. He is subtle and subversive and creative and effective. 

He is an inventor of evil. There are any number of ways to get a sum wrong, but only one way to get it correct. Satan's strategy is to create new permutations of the same evil in order to present what appears to be a new thing, something we hadn't prepared for; but if we're paying attention, we can adapt to his schemes by seeing them for what they are... the same ol' seductions.

1 Corinthians 10:12-13
Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

day no. 15,162: simpliciter

"Simplicity promotes speed; complexity slows things down. Simplicity should be central to our plans." -- MCDP 1-3: Tactics

Simplicity is not inherently virtuous or advantageous. To over-simplify a complex situation is to create one kind of problem and to over-complicate a simple situation is another kind.

Overall, simplicity is faster than complexity. Thoroughness tends to take longer than timeliness. However, if you act quickly, but incoherently, your action will be speedy, but inefficient and could end up causig additional actions that take additional time.

To be quick in the wrong direction is only to create different problems. 

Order is quicker than disorder.
Clarity provides simplicity.
Simplicity produces rapidity.

1 Corinthians 14:33
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.

God is not more complicated than He needs to be. He is complex, but not any more than necessary.

Things should be as complex as they are, but not more so. 

day no. 15,161: attacking future problems through present obedience

"Our enemy falls behind in a panicked game of catch up. As he tries to respond to our penetration, we attack his reserves and his command and control. As he counterattacks with his mobile reserve, we bypass with helicopterbome forces. Everything he does is too late."
-- MCDP 1-3: Tactics

Satan often employs this tactic successfully against Christians by convincing them to leave many problems for another day. But rest assured, if you leave important problems for another day, they will be problems on another day.

As a result, many Christians are doing things too late. They start thinking about, "How far is too far sexually in dating?" only after already having crossed the line. They buy a book on marriage only after domestic disturbances are already frequent. They go to a parenting conference only after their kids are presenting clear signs of heading the wrong direction. 

Satan prevents many good works by keeping Christians busy trying to fix their last problems instead of proactively attacking future problems through present obedience.

Proverbs 6:4-5
Give your eyes no sleep
and your eyelids no slumber;
save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
like a bird from the hand of the fowler.