Details

The story is told of three men who were sentenced to die by the guillotine. There was a pastor, a lawyer and an engineer. Each of them had an opportunity to say something before their execution. The pastor raised his hands and said, “May God have mercy on us all.” The executioner moved him into position for his execution. As the guillotine came down it abruptly stopped just before severing the pastor’s head from his body. The pastor was set free.

The lawyer stepped up and cried out to the crowd, “Justice for all.” The blade of the guillotine again stopped just before falling on his neck. The lawyer was also allowed to go free.

The engineer stepped up for his last words and said, “If you would just tighten those two bolts on the right side then this contraption would work perfectly!”

I am in India working with business men and women who want their businesses to make a difference for the Kingdom. I was asked to give a devotional this morning at the beginning of the day. I talked about some rules for living, and one of the points that I made was to pay attention to detail. Jesus paid attention to detail: in Mark 5:25-34, a woman who had a hemorrhage was in the crowd. She worked hard to get near Jesus, and she touched Jesus’ garment. Jesus turned and said “Who touched my garment?” Jesus paid attention to detail.

I probably pay more attention to details than the average person. My wife would probably tell you that I only pay attention to things that need to be done in the house: “Honey, did you see that cobweb in the corner?” or “Wow, the pollen has really covered things in the house.” Yes, those type comments usually get me in hot water.

When someone asks me to read something for feedback they usually mean for me to look at content or theme concerns. However, when I read it I cannot help but edit the document (if it is not terribly written—I have actually told some people that I can’t read the document until it is written in a more intelligible manner).

Maybe I am a bit overboard with details, but I learn a lot paying attention to details. I believe that it is usually necessary to pay attention to details to achieve excellence.

God is all about details. If you don’t believe it, sit down in a public place where there are a lot of people moving past you and start studying peoples’ faces. You will not see two people with the same features. That does not seem so awesome unless you are where I am now. I have been doing a lot of walking in Bangalore—fighting jet lag as I was in Kyrgyzstan for a week, then back in Georgia for four days, then back to Asia. Yes, that is crazy, but necessary to fulfill my commitments.

There are well over a billion people in India and only 8 million of them live in this city. I think all of them are on the streets at 5 pm as that is the time that I have been walking the past two days. I am telling you it amazes me to look into the faces of all these Indians and not see any two who look alike. God is in the details! He made all of us in his image, but He made all of us to look different from the other and the amazing thing is that there are not a lot of square inches on a human’s face. I mean, there is only so many things you can do with a chin, right?!

Celebrate! We are all alike in the image of God, but we are all different to our human eyes. God is all about the details.