Pathfinding.

Day X+1. Call this a remedial to my April challenge, or I don’t know, I’m on a roll.

Anyway.

I’ve been listening to The Richest Man In Babylon and one thing stuck. This is a commentary on wisdom which was shared to the ‘protagonist’, Arkad:

“The thoughts of youth … are bright lights that shine forth like the meteors that oft make brilliant the sky, but the wisdom of age is like the fixed stars that shine so unchanged that the sailor may depend upon them to steer his course.”

I feel the same way regarding the relationship between Preparedness and Practice. Practice is as the stars that shine, while Preparing is as bright lights that illuminate the sky so brightly, if only for a second.

In other words, you prepare occasionally, but you never, never stop shining by way of practicing.

And before I go ahead and dive into Practice and how Practice Sharpens Your Talent, I had a thought on Preparation, between last time I posted and right now:

Imagine the Creator of the Universe and the cosmic logistics that were involved in before time began and before space was contained. Imagine the many calculations and the endless details that ran through our omniscient God, and imagine how it was all executed in a snap of a finger – or, rather, beginning with the words, ‘Let there be light.’

Imagine the eons’ worth of perceived cellular generation, regeneration, and evolution, squeezed into a microfraction of time, the hundreds of millions of years reduced to, say, a week, and within those 6 days, our omnipotent God put every star and planet and galaxy, every gust of wind and blade of grass, every grain of sand and every instance of lightning , all in its proper place.

Imagine, within these 6 days, how the omnipresent God had to monitor everything developing, as a master chef watching patiently and cautiously over each and every detail begin, change, and/or end…

Imagine – this is our God, and it was by His standards and to His satisfaction to say, after each day – ‘It is good.’

To think about all the preparations behind our creation already astounds me. How much more did Christ prepare before His own words, ‘It is finished?’

What ideas and details were in His infinite mind as He spoke these words? What other detail and nuance is our God focused so lovingly on, before the King of Kings declares, ‘It is done!’?

May this be our motivation to prepare! Chance falls upon all men regardless of timing and capacity… But this is exactly why Paul proclaims – NOW is the day of SALVATION!

It is from our Savior – who created Time and is beyond Borders – and it is ACCORDING to our Savior to say when we are saved, and His finished work ensured that the Holy Spirit is CONSTANTLY moving, through time and space, that ALL may be saved.

My word, this was not the thought on my mind between the last post and this one, but look where we got to after exploring this rabbit hole.

But alas, there it is. I remember now.

What are practical ways to prepare? Well, it’s necessary for us, first of all, to know when to prepare, and I will tackle instances we all need to prepare: Whenever we make important decisions, or whenever we are part of an event to change the world, or in the event that the world attempts to change us.

Preparation has an on and off switch, and consequently, it is a binary variable. What do I mean? Well, you’re either prepared, or you aren’t, and it’s relative to the results you envision.

So if your preparation does not result in the vision you had, it’s not because you didn’t prepare ‘enough’. It’s because you may not have had the right vision.

Again, we go back to Christ. I’m not about to say that you can count on Him to give you absolutely detailed visions guiding you to preparation guaranteeing success, but I will say this – You may falter with your preparations, you may overshoot or fall short on your vision, but know that the One who gave you sight is the One who knows it all, and you can invest all your trust in Him – not your plans, not your visions, but in the One who has THE plan to prosper you, and the One who has given you life and light, and sight.

It is from this that I say, ‘Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and He will establish your plans.’

That’s funny. I have a recording of Dad saying that exact same verse.

And okay. I may not be right about when I said that Preparation is more measured in Boolean than in percentages, and I’d like to hear what anyone has to say about that. In my attempt to flow all these long-overdue thoughts in my mind, that just came out, and I was half-curious to see where I was going with this, as I went down that path.

But there it is. Perhaps I said what I said about Preparation to top off my message regarding Practice… Because I think the point I want to deliver is that we’re not always preparing… but we are always practicing.

And practicing, intentionally, or unintentionally.

I remember the Book of Void – the last of the Five by Miyamoto Musashi. You cover all of the other elements and practice them again, and again, and again… until what you do is reflex, and no longer boosted or most likely encumbered by emotion. The point of the Book of Void – or, at least how I understand it – is for us to keep moving intentionally until our movement is natural and… unintentional, perhaps?

Keep doing what you’re doing until you don’t need the reminder to do what you do, and even then, keep doing.

I think… in the light of the narrative I say I’m pushing… that practice is what we do, day in and day out, in order for us to celebrate our Foundation, with less and less of our Being, that we may invest any freed resources back into our Being, or even our Beliefs.

Or, in the light of Preparation, we Practice so there is less need to prepare for when things happen to us, versus for when we make things happen.

Or, in the light of all we’ve been talking about, sort of like a checkpoint, Practice is the Focused Initiative for us to Passionately Prepare our Talents in celebration of our Beliefs.

I don’t know. I’m falling into the temptation of just ending this now and procrastinating, because the message on Practice is still far from now.

Watch this space.