Working One’s Way Up

A man entered a certain recruiting office and said, “I want to join up as a soldier.”

But how old are you?” the sergeant asked.

“Sixty,” was the man’s reply.

“You know quite well that sixty is too old for you to become a soldier.”

“All right, if 60 is too old for a soldier, don’t you need any generals?”

If one wants to start one’s career as a general, one will be hard put to it to do so. It’s just like a race where one can’t leap straight from the starting point to the finishing line. To succeed in anything, we have to be like the tree, starting from the seed, growing slowly and putting out branches, twigs, leaves and flowers when the appropriate times come around. Similarly, business starts with investing money, not with earning profits. The construction of a house starts with the foundations and not with the roof. Eating begins with the sowing of seeds, not with the laying of the table. The factory begins with the acquisition of machinery and not with the sale of the end products.

Congregational matters are very much on a parallel. They begin from the inculcation in individuals a sense of purpose and an understanding of the importance of hard work, honesty, endurance and unity.

Not until the individuals of a nation are imbued with these important ideals to a very high degree can measures be taken for the advancement of any cause. If we ignore the importance of preconditioning, our ventures are bound to end in failure. Any attempt to launch a movement without a solid, national infrastructure would be like trying to roof a house without raising its walls. A roof put up in this way is eventually bound to collapse on one’s head. In much the same way, any steps taken before individuals have been properly prepared for them will lead inevitably to failure and chaos—even death and destruction. They will be found to lead one further and further away from the true objectives.