day 625: The Benefits Of Prefinishing

"The stones used in the construction of the Temple were prefinished at the quarry, so the entire structure was built without the sound of hammer, ax, or any other iron tool at the building site."

Being prepared and ready for what is next is like bringing in prefinished materials to a work site. Just the word, "prefinished" tells a story in itself in how we think about our work. If we are more about prefinishing than starting from scratch on site, then we likely to be better ready for the curve balls that inevitably come our way. This week I was coaching a CEO who was getting ready to have a difficult meeting. I encouraged him to spend time the night before writing down the three points that he wanted to get across and to be conscious of getting those three points across before the conversation was completed. I asked him to bring his thoughts in prefinished. This doesn't mean that he, and all of us at some point, have to shift and be ready to make accommodations or changes, but we are so much better off when we come ready and prefinished.

The same can be said in how we approach bringing glory to God in our work. We can also come prefinished to our jobs if we have prepared our spirit through prayer, reading God's Word and being in fellowship and accountability for when we hit the office door. We can come prefinished and ready for what will come our way. It may well be that this prefinishing is what allows us to keep from being marred, scraped up, dinged and dented. Not that we have any promises that we will have it any easier or better off than a non-believer, but we know that God will never put more on us than we can bear. And, if we do the work to be even that much more ready then we can reap the benefits that God wants to give us. This weekend think about where you can be more prefinished and then start working on that now.

Reference: 1 Kings 6:7 (New Living Testament)

day 455: Prefinished

I love to tell the story about how Henry Kissinger would not accept the work of his people until they had done multiple revisions. He would send them away time after time until they were exasperated and said that they could not do any better. It was then that he would accept their work and read it or send it forward. In our age of immediacy we don't do lots of pre-writes or rewrites or have others edit our work before it goes forward. We shoot emails to the CEO or the Board, or to our bosses, from an original thought and many times those thoughts aren't really finished and we end up having to go back and rework from a place of being admonished or embarrassed or just corrected. How much better it is when we "prefinish" our work before we take it forward. It takes discipline and thought to prepare something ahead of time that when brought forward it is already ready to go. I wouldn't want to count the number of times I have still been scrambling at the last minute to bring it all together on a project. While it may all come together at the last minute, the work could definitely be better if it was prefinished. Solomon gave us an example of the importance of prefinishing when he was building the first Temple to the Lord. In 1 Kings 6:7 we read; "The stones used in the construction of the Temple were prefinished at the quarry, so the entire structure was built without the sound of hammer, ax, or any other iron tool at the building site." Last month I used this verse to demonstrate how going about our work quietly can be a good thing. This verse also show me the power in prefinishing and the errors that can be alleviated, the conflicts that can be avoided and the waste that can be eliminated. And maybe most importantly, the reverence that is demonstrated by the thoughtful planning, the priority setting, and the commitment to be done ahead of time. Today, try prefinishing something and see how much easier everything falls into its place when it is time.

Reference: 1 Kings 6:7 (New Living Testament)