"Pay attention to details!"
”Mistakes will get you killed!”
"You always have more time than you think you have!"
Those phrases, and variations of them, have been shouted at new recruits since the beginning of armies. It doesn't change, ever. A civilian becoming a soldier, across all cultures and eras, is a process of undergoing a dramatic change of thought and action patterns.
I vividly remember the foul-tempered senior drill sergeant who screamed at me at Fort Leonard Wood decades ago. His job was to coordinate his subordinate drill sergeants and forge a company of two hundred lazy and distracted civilians into soldiers in nine weeks. There was curriculum for him to follow, and many years of experience and precedent, but I still can't get over how daunting that task must seem every cycle. I briefly worked in the OCS (Officer Candidate School) and got to supervise some training, and that was frustrating work. It's easy to forget that you, too, were once a green new piece of cannon fodder. You, too, seemed really stupid to your instructors.
Much of that time in basic training remains a fog of sleep-deprivation and rolling around in the mud, but I never forgot the phrases they screamed at us, and how well those phrases applied to what we were trying to learn. After hundreds of screaming sessions over nine weeks, it finally stuck.
Pay close attention to every single detail.
Mistakes can get you killed.
You always have more time than you think you have.
Concentrate.
Be efficient.
Move quickly but not recklessly.
Pay attention to details.
Remove distractions.
Listen carefully to every word of every instruction. If you don't, the Taliban will make you pay for it.
And, finally: Pay. Attention. To. Details!
Scriptures says that we are to "be transformed by the renewing of our minds."1
I was thinking about that recently when I was working on drafting the manuscript for Fires of War (book 4 in the series). I’d recently read a book about how your brain builds memory channels and organizes itself according to neuron usage, and I realized quite a few of the neurons I used to have were AWOL. I was drawing too many blanks when it came to plot, character, and the nuance of story development.
It was time for a reset.
The Lord wants us to live disciplined lives. Not burdensome ones; just disciplined. Do we put careful thought into how our day will unfold or do we just wake up and lurch against the guard rails until bedtime? Do we consult with Him about what our priorities should be? Is there too much time spent on frivolous things?
Likewise, are we overworking ourselves? Are we straining beyond the boundaries we can handle? Are we damaging our bodies with assaults from stress hormones that will eventually kill us?
Internet and social media addiction is truly becoming a pandemic. Arguably on the level of COVID, but because it is more subtle, it’s ignored. Internet addiction and its instant rewards of dopamine hits for constant, frantic information gathering is rewiring brains.
Have you noticed more difficulty when trying to read anything longer than a news headline? Is your mind wandering one paragraph into a book? Are you pulling out your phone in mid-conversation?
Are you already bored reading this?
I'm not offended if so. I’ve noticed myself losing my own attention span halfway through blog posts, too.
God designed our brains to do truly miraculous things. We can, through effort and discipline, actually rewire our central nervous system. We can create new circuits of nerves. We can build fresh paths of thoughts and memories. But in order to retrain our thinking, we need to start eliminating distractions.
King David lived in a pastoral ancient culture where it was far easier to "be still" and avoid the clutter of distractions. Time was oriented around sunrise and sunset, not minutes. Still, he recognized the value of quiet contemplation and isolation. Perhaps it was a prophetic message for those in the future who would live in the digital age to record such passages as, "Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!”2
Are we failing to pay attention to details because we are inundated with too many details? Are we willing to discipline our bodies through exercise, but not our minds through reading, thought, and stillness?
I have found that my productivity increases dramatically when I turn off electronic devices whenever possible and only let my eyes see the world around me and the printed text of a book.
That text message response can wait.
That email can wait.
I get it. Co-workers are demanding answers. Wives want to know the status.
But didn't we used to live in a world before cell phones?
Was it not possible to encounter people as you were able and respond to them as you were able?
Most importantly, is our lack of discipline in our minds preventing us from hearing the voice of our Shepherd trying to direct us? Are we tuning Him out when he wants to fellowship with us as battle buddies?
It's worth giving your mind the boot camp treatment if it's been a while for you. Find things to isolate and remove, at least for a season. Facebook and its horrors will still be there waiting for you.
Pay attention to the details of your family, your job, a book, the Scriptures, anything worthwhile, and try to concentrate on them exclusively while you are with them.
Don’t let yourself engage in multi-thoughting (something even more intense than multi-tasking).
David didn't have the internet or a Gmail account, and he probably wouldn't have liked TikTok, but he did have an enormously complex empire to run. To run it, he quieted things down in order to quiet his mind, went before his God, and built his mental discipline according to the spiritual calling he was empowered with.
We'd be wise to do the same.
Praise and Arrows.
Romans 12:2
Psalm 37:7