Attention to Detail

Well, its been a while. This thing has a way of creeping away from me...

It seems that for the last few days, maybe weeks, God has been beating me over the head with this idea of "Attention to Detail." In my job, I have been reminding my team that its the small stuff that makes-or-breaks our efficiency. Most people get the 'big' things right most or all of the time. Its when you drill down to the little things, the nit-picky things, the small items and not-so-important details, that we often pass or fail the test.

Ironically, those little details reveal far more about our attitudes and character than we wish to let on. People skip details for many reasons. They're apathetic and don't care. They're to busy with something else and their priorities are not in proper alignment. They don't have the right knowledge base to correctly do the little things. They're lazy or tired or bored and just want to be done with it.

In my line of work, those attitudes shine through. You come to value that employee that consistently takes the time and exerts the effort to get most (no one gets them all) of those details right. On the flip-side, it can be extremely frustrating when someone consistently does not do so, and again this usually stems from a character flaw or attitude problem.

I was recently reminded of the example of New York City. The new Mayor was the Honorable Rudy Juliani, who is now known to virtually everyone but at that time was not well known outside of New York. The City itself was a real mess, with a very serious crime issue - and a serious attitude problem. New Yorkers looked to their new mayor for his promised solution to clean up the mess. Would he double the homicide cops? Focus on Vice? Put more patrolmen on the beat?

Mayor Juliani surprised them. He did indeed send more cops into the streets with a directive: bust the petty crimes. Specifically, he went after jay-walkers. Liter bugs. People who urinated in public.

There was an outcry! He was wasting time on little things when there were big things to fix! How dare he?!?! But then, people began to notice something. The attitude started to shift. As the people in authority began to show that the little things meant something and started enforcing the small things, the common people's attitudes changed. It was suddenly important. It meant something. And things changed. People stayed inside the cross-walks. They began to obey traffic directions and crossling lights. They started using trash bins and public rest-rooms. The traffic snarls became less hectic. Cops found people had better attitudes in general.

And then, people started really resenting criminals. They started getting angry and outraged when crimes happened. And just as they had become willing to be involved in cleaning up the trash, they became willing to be involved in cleaning up the crime.

People started talking to cops, they started intervening on occasion to stop crimes by simply being there and witnessing, and they actively helped police find and put away real criminals with big crimes.

The big problems started to be solved, but only after the little things were put aright.

This rumination led me back to the words of Jesus: "He who is faithful in little will be faithful in much." and the correllary, "He who is unfaithful in little will be unfaithful in much."

Attention to detail. I'll bet you never really thought about it as a Teaching of Christ before, eh?

But there it is. And it strikes me that our lives are no different. Its the little things. So many times we get the big things right, and don't even try with the little things. But the little things are the things that reveal our attitude. Our heart is in the details.

And God, more than anything, desires our hearts.

So, pay attention to the details. Give God your heart. I fail miserably, but my prayer today and going forward is that, in the end, my attention - and heart - will be in the details as well.