Analyzing Results

A few minutes ago something happened that gave me pause. A quick moment to ruminate and consider the results wondering what happened to produce the final product.

If you are smart then you know to do this with every project. On the Y2K project, we called it something like “After Action Report” where we looked at everything, the Good, the Bad, and the downright Ugly. Without pointing fingers at any person, we were determined to find out how to make the final results better than they were so that we learned backward how to better go forward.

Imagine that you have only so much money to spend on groceries, and you plan your shopping trip with a list in hand and coupons ready to account for savings. Only, you get to the register and you realize you do not have enough funds. Been there. Done that. You make the sacrifice somewhere else in your budget, spend the dollars, and then analyze the register receipt to find out where you went wrong!

What did your analysis find? Where did your plan go wrong? Could it be the prices had changed, or was the coupon out of date, or did you simply buy something you had not planned for?

Regardless, once you know where the problem existed what do you do to make sure the next time isn’t like this time? One lesson learned? Never go to the grocery store hungry!!!

For the briefest of moments, this morning, I wondered what happens to all the trash we produce in life… Hence the garbage can picture for this posting. Can we rethink, clarify and restate our input and processes so we produce less trash??? Sure. Is it worth it? Go to any landfill and see the hard work it takes to fill up the land with compacted and covered trash, and you will probably change how you think about the refuse that comes out of your life!

When I was new in the IT industry back in the early ’70s, only we called it Data Processing back then, we learned a very important idea that we applied to everything:

Garbage in = Garbage out

We learned that all input processes needed data that was scrubbed, cleaned, repaired and ordered so that Processing of the data would produce good results. Processing bad data would produce a failure in the middle of the processing, most likely after the midnight hour, or it would produce bad results that invalidated the processing cycle, hence a repair and reprocessing time was required, and generally at the most inopportune time! When you are dealing with someone else’s money (at a bank) then you want to minimize the downtime of ATM’s, Tellers, and processors of the data results.

Sometimes the input is at fault, or there were processing changes made that did not fully test the input or the output so that the processing is at fault. Sometimes we simply do not understand what kind of results we want so we did not plan the input nor processing very well. I’m just saying.

Here’s my thought today. This concept applies to everything we do. From buying the best fuel for our car to using the right ingredients in baking, or saying the right thing to a person or audience.

It not only has practical applications, but it is also used in our spiritual walk. Our results are directly affected by how we analyze, plan, schedule and control the input and processes. Set aside the “luck factor” or “God overrode my mistakes” mentality, I believe that we should not continually expect good results due to luck, or God, to fix what we did not execute well because we put in Garbage and expected Gold as the result.

Let me give you a scriptural example. Jesus is teaching about prayer.

“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.
(Matthew 6:5 NKJV)

His first thought is to pull the praying person away from the example of the hypocrite. Go look this word up. You will probably need to dig deep to find out that it’s related to the concept of “being an actor”. A pretender. As one dictionary says, … “a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion” or ”
a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings”.

So. There is a way to pray, just as there are probably many who pretend to pray in the public eye. I wonder if we know how to pray for good results?

Jesus goes on to teach (Matthew 6:6-8) that the better pathway to prayer is away from everyone else, in a private place, and with attention turned to God, and do not use repetitious words that are vain. Vain? It’s more about “me” and how I look or sound to others. If you are looking for a reward then vain repetitious words about yourself are your immediate rewards! God already knows our heart, and our needs, so what don’t you simply pray to him for good results?

Then he lays out the plan of their words to teach how to pray effectively. No garbage in. No faulty processing. No garbage out.

In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
(Matthew 6:9-13 NKJV)

How about taking a few moments and analyze your prayer results, then look back to your input data and processing to determine if your results are simply an image of your input. You know, Garbage on both ends of the Equation?

Jesus concludes this segment of thought (read the remainder of the chapter) with these two verses.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
(Matthew 6:33-34 NKJV)

Where do all these teachings come from? They begin in the 5th chapter and conclude at the beginning of the 8th chapter of Matthew. We’ve titled this, “The Sermon on the Mount” and it includes sections of thought that produce good input to our lives, including The Beatitudes. It’s most probably the same teaching found in Luke 6, only here we have a longer discourse.

We’re not entirely sure of the location, but I’ve been to Israel where it is commonly accepted that the mount (hill) overlooks the Sea of Galilee in a natural amphitheater with the water as the backdrop. Sound travels well and no public address system (PA) is needed to talk to the huge crowd that followed him.

Lest we get lost in the details, the concept is this. Jesus is laying down a new way of looking at our input to life, the processing of all the data so that we can have a better outcome. Isn’t this essentially what the New Testament is all about?

Perhaps it’s wise to stop what you’re doing, analyze your output, then back up to your input and processes, and spend the necessary time determining if you are producing that which is better for our lives than what we are seeing in our results.

It’s a wise person that says it’s always a good time to analyze my results… #RCR, Rethink, Clarify, Restate…