GET IT RIGHT! DO 1860 12/7/82
1. WHEN MARIA & I WERE DOING THE FIRST LETTERS IN ISRAEL & CYPRUS WE WENT OVER EVERY WORD, every letter, every paragraph, every underline personally, both of us, & made sure it was exactly right & said what we wanted it to say & it was spelled right, punctuated right, underlined right, emphasised right & that it was right!--And what we wanted to say to the Family!
2. RIGHT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING!--ACCURACY WAS OUR MOTTO, although maybe not perfect typing, but I thought Maria did a good job--it was readable, it was legible, it was accurate, it was spelled right, punctuated right, underlined right & paragraphed right & you knew what I meant, & Maria knew what I meant & read it & agreed with it & that was the way it was supposed to be!
3. I WAS TAUGHT IN BUSINESS SCHOOL, WHERE I LEARNED BOTH TYPING & STENO TYPING, THAT ACCURACY WAS FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN SPEED, that it was more important to get it right. Our teachers taught us that speed will come with practice & that as you continue to type, it will just come automatically. You don't have to rush or push, just get it right!--As you gain in experience & practice, you will naturally gain in speed, but the main thing is to get it right.
4. HOW MANY THINGS HAVE I WRITTEN ON GOING SLOW & PRAYERFULLY & REALLY WAITING ON THE LORD: "Squeeze, Don't Jerk!" "Look Before You Leap!" "Stop, Look & Listen!" How many other Letters have I written about that?
5. "IN QUIETNESS & CONFIDENCE SHALL YOUR STRENGTH BE." (Is.30:15) "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee." (Is.26:3) There is nothing in the Bible about hurry etc.--the only verse I can ever remember any preachers or anybody using to try to make us rush was, "The King's business requireth haste." But for that one Scripture in the whole Bible, I think there must be 100 that tell you to go slow, or words to that effect, even to take it easy!
6. JESUS SAID, "COME UNTO ME, ALL YE THAT ARE WEARY & HEAVY LADEN. Learn of Me, for I am meek & lowly in heart, & ye shall have rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy & My burden is light." (Mt.11:28-30) And when you get under too much pressure & too much tension, too heavy a burden & too hard a yoke, it's not God's fault! It is somebody else's fault, or your own fault!
7. MAYBE THAT'S WHY GOD CREATED MULES & DONKEYS--AS A GOOD LESSON. They are plodders, they are very slow, but they have more endurance & can carry heavier loads than horses & they are the workhorses of the backwoods. They can negotiate trails that horses would kill themselves on & can carry loads for miles that a horse wouldn't make it on, a race horse especially!
8. RACE HORSES CAN SPURT FOR A FEW ROUNDS AROUND THE TRACK & THAT'S IT! They're extremely high-strung, nervous, & they just are not work horses, they're not plodders, they're not load carriers. But pack mules & donkeys are & they're as stubborn as they come! You cannot rush them. You have to do it slow & in their time & just plod along, but they do it & they get there! It's like the old story of the tortoise & the hare.--The tortoise was slow but he got there!
9. I ADMIT I'M SLOW! I've always been slow. I was slow in school & I've always been slow about everything. I like slow driving. I like to do everything slow.--If I go fast, I'm not fast enough to think or follow or make sure I'm getting it right, & I'm not thorough enough if I go fast.
10. MY FATHER WAS THE SAME WAY & IT USED TO PLAGUE MY MOTHER. She couldn't understand how he could be so slow, but he was thorough, & when it came to Bible teaching & thorough learning of the Scriptures, I actually learned more from my Father's Bible studies in the way of thorough Bible teaching & Bible education than I did from my Mother's fast inspirational glowing emotional messages! I learned a lot from her too, of course, it takes both.
11. BUT YOU CAN HAVE THE EMOTION & YOU CAN HAVE THE SPEED, I'LL TAKE THE LOW ROAD & THE SLOW ROAD. You can take the high road & get there first if you want to, if you get there at that rate. But I'm going to take the low road & the slow road & I'm determined to get there one way or the other, no matter how long it takes, & I'm going to get the load there. It's going to get there & it's going to be delivered & it's going to be right!
12. IF YOU'RE SPEEDING SO FAST & TRYING TO GET TOO MUCH DONE INSTEAD OF FOLLOWING THE LORD & HIS GUIDANCE & WAITING FOR HIM, you're going to be running ahead of Him & just crash & crack up!--Instead of learning how to take it easy & go slow! My God, how much have I written on that?--That God is seldom ever in a hurry except for His judgements! That's when I can move fast, when I get angry. But I don't move so fast in my work, because if I do it will slow down the work.
13. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD TAXI DRIVERS, "GO SLOW & YOU LIVE LONGER. Live fast & you'll die quicker," & it certainly is true! Science & doctors & medical men & health experts & everybody has said so. These doctors & health experts have said that pressure & tension in this modern generation is killing people, that most of the diseases & illnesses that they have are either from pressure & tension, or improper diet, & that these things are killing them with heart trouble, nervous trouble & high blood pressure & God knows what!
14. LORD, HELP US IN JESUS' NAME TO GO SLOW, SQUEEZE & NOT JERK, TO STOP, LOOK & LISTEN.--Never to waste time, Lord, but help us to trust You instead of being impatient. Patience obviously indicates slowness, plodding along & doing our work persistently & constantly & not wasting time, but not getting fretful & worried & all worked up about it. Impatience is "Speed, hurry, rush, haste, push, pressure, tension!"
15. PATIENCE SHOWS FAITH. Impatience shows lack of faith. You don't think it's going to do the job unless you hurry & push it & rush it. But if we've got the faith, Lord, You're going to take care of it somehow, & we can afford to be patient & afford to wait & go slow & do it right.
16. THIS FAMILY DIDN'T HAPPEN OVERNIGHT & THIS REVOLUTION WASN'T BUILT IN A DAY. It took time & a lot of hard work & patience & faith & waiting, & waiting for God to lead & do God's Will, & a lot of stopping & just waiting sometimes--just sitting around waiting for God to tell us what to do when we didn't know what to do, because it wasn't His time to do it.--So He didn't tell us!--We weren't wasting time while waiting. We were redeeming it by planning & preparing.
17. IT TOOK HIM 49 YEARS TO PREPARE ME FOR THIS JOB, SO OBVIOUSLY HE WASN'T IN A VERY BIG HURRY!--Or maybe I was just so damn slow that He couldn't push me any faster than that. Well, apparently He was willing to wait. Maybe He was waiting on me. Maybe you'd better learn how to wait on me & have as much patience & faith as God.
18. GIVE ME TIME & I'LL GET IT DONE, I'll get it done right & at least I'll get it done. We've gone slow & we've built the Family brick-by-brick & item-by-item & day-by-day until I think it's pretty firm & pretty solid, we've got a pretty good foundation & a pretty good solid structure, built Letter-by-Letter & instruction-by-instruction & inspiration-by-inspiration. And it has taken years to do it. Apparently God is not in any great big hurry. He'd rather do it right than to even get it done! God help us to learn that lesson, in Jesus' name, amen!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family