Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

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The Editor's Page
A CALL TO CHRISTIAN EFFICIENCY
A few years ago we were hearing a great deal
about efficiency experts. These engineers () pro
posed to go into any factory or office and make a
survey of each man's job, analyze it, breaking it
down into its several component parts, and teach him
how to eliminate lost motion. Two men unloading a
carload of pig iron could save three hours of time
by following the expert's instructions, and all other
jobs likewise. The reaction of many men was that
made into mere robots and lost their
they were being
liberty and their personality. Nevertheless the as
sembly line still persists.
Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are the Chris
tian's efficiency experts, and if the whole world
would listen to them and read God's Rule Book,
the hindering forces of the world would be elimi
nated, and the constructive forces speeded up. But
mankind in general insists on learning the hard way.
Trial and error (mostly error) , sowing wild oats, is
their idea of self education. In most cases the results
are fatal.
"Make straight paths for your feet" (Heb. 12:
13), says the Scripture. "I am the Way, the Truth
and the Life," says the Great Shepherd. Eliminate
the lost motions of your life.
Boston, "the hub of the has crooked
streets
bent spokes. One tradition says that aristo
cratic Bostonians used to own milch cows instead of
Rolls-Royces, and when they drove them across the
Commons after the morning chore, the cows went
from one green tuft to another, and made the paths
that afterwards became the streets. Maybe that is
where Henry Wadsworth Longfellow got that unfor
gettable line, "Be not like dumb driven An
other tradition has it that these are paths of the
wayward citizens, coming home in the wee hours
of the dusky dawn. The Evolution of the Super High
way might make you a good thesis subject for your
doctorate degree. From the Pathfinder to the Turn
Piker. But note this : Every path or turn pike once
had its first traveler.
Psychologists tell us that all our habits are path
ways or grooves in our brains figuratively speak
ing, of course. The first time you do a thing is like
a very light pinscratch, but repetition makes the
score deeper, and soon it becomes a groove, then a
rut which reminds us of the kindly man who put up a
warning at the beginning of a very bad piece of
road : "Choose your rut carefully, for you will be in
it for the next forty So God says to the be
ginner of habits, "Make straight paths for your
feet."
Habit Centers Are Scattered Throughout the Body.
A skilled piano player will play a piece of music
she has never seen before, reading the several clefs
with the eyes, playing them with the fingers, check
ing the harmony
and the time with ears and coordin
ating them all so unconsciously that scarcely a
thought needs to be given to the whole performance.
But this is possible as a result of many hours of fin
ger exercises, in which the various phrases of the
music have all been seen by the eyes, heard by the
292
ears, and only the general effect is recorded in the
mind. Whoever thinks of which muscles he is using
in walking, or which foot he is advancing, keeping
his balance with all those bones and muscles in
each of his feet The straight-paths-for-his-feet
habit he mastered when a mere infant.
But the moral habits of feet, hands, eyes, ears,
tongue, and heart, are not so easily trained. "Keep
thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the is
sues of life." Touch not, taste not, handle not, look
not, walk not, sin not, such are the constant warnings
of scripture. Make a covenant with thine eyes, and all
those other wayward members, and see that they
keep their covenants. And the covenants of yester
day need revising today. As one travels what was a
marvelous road when it was built years ago, he often
sees the new improved highway, straight and level
being constructed parallel to it. A few miles further
on he is allowed to travel on the new road "under
construction, at your own From it you look
down on the old road, narrow, crooked and worn, dip
ping into the valleys and over the hills. So should
the straightened paths for our feet be ever "under
every valley being exalted and every
hill brought low, the crooked being made straight
and the rough places plain, a vertible King's High
way. To straighten out the old worn-out habit paths
we need to make frequent re-surveys ; are we doing
our work in the most efficient way We should set
new objectives for ourselves, as the ploughman who
would plow a pilot furrow keeps his eye fixed on the
stake at the far side of the field, remembering that
having put his hand to the plough, if he looks back
instead of forward, he is unfit for the job. Perhaps
the best way of all is to run our race with patience,
setting our feet into the very footprints of our Pace
maker Jesus who says, "Follow Me."
Christian Efficiency Helps Your Fellow Traveler
There is a strange contrast between the King
James Version and the RSV. The KJV reads:
"Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and
confirm the feeble knees" (pep up the other fellow,
as I supposed) ; "make straight paths for your feet,
way"
lest that which is lame be turned out of the
(fatally missing the curve in the road, as I sup
posed) ; "but let it rather be healed." That would be
an altruistic motive for going straight. But the RSV
(possibly more correctly translated) appeals to our
selfish motives : "Therefore lift your drooping hands
and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight
paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be
put out of joint but rather be healed." That leads me
to think of the man back in southern Ohio, or was it
in the Green Mountains, who had one of those hill
side farms so nearly perpendicular that the sheep de
veloped their legs on the off side so that they were
some four inches longer than those on the near side.
"The legs of the lame are not That's why
we walk in circles when we get lost in a prairie bliz
zardjust that fraction of an inch difference. A
straight path helps to correct our deficiencies,
and
of those who follow our footsteps also. Let's cut out
those lost motions, and practice Christian efficiency.
COVENANTER WITNESS