While visiting with my brother, Tim, today he said, "Ya gotta have a cadence."  I like that.  I like that a lot.  It puts into focus what I've always felt and believed.

What he meant is that you need to have a system.  You need to find and develop the most efficient way of doing the job at hand.  It also means that you need to put order into your life and develop good habits.  Life can't be haphazard if it's going to be lived successfully.  We need purpose and goals.

Having a cadence also means not running faster than we have strength.  We need to prioritize our activities, work deliberately and without haste, and make sure that less-important things don't take priority over the things that really matter.

Having a cadence means being prepared.  When surprises pop up, or temptations beset us, or when things don't go as planned, because we have a cadence and are prepared, we can gracefully carry on through the disturbance.

I used to help my brother, Tim, work his cattle.  I think that I learned from him the need to go over in my mind each step of the job ahead before trying to carry it out.  I would arrive at his place ready to work the cattle only to discover that the corrals had to first be repaired, and that someone still needed to make a quick trip to town to get the vaccines.  I can't stand to waste anyone's time, and it would especially drive me crazy if I thought that I was having to pay someone to stand around while a preparation was being done that might have been done earlier if I'd had a little foresight.

I really think that it was Tim's corrals that taught me how to prepare church talks and lessons, and that taught me how to install kitchen cabinets.  I have to go over every word and every step in my mind beforehand so that I will know where my thoughts should go next, and so that I'll have all the tools and visual aids gathered for when I need them.

Lots of jobs are very repetitive.  They can often be dull.  Even the dull jobs can become fun when you look for, find, and develop a system for doing them.  Developing a system means eliminating wasted effort and making things efficient.

Next spring I plan to move our asparagus patch.  The inefficient way to do it would be to dig up a root, carry it to its new location, dig a hole, and plant it.  It would be more efficient if, while I have the shovel in my hand, I would dig the entire trench where the asparagus roots are going to be planted.  I'll then go dig a bucketful of roots, carry them to the trench, lay them in position, and cover them all up at one time.  I won't be wasting motions by repetitively picking up and setting down my tool, or by moving back and forth between the digging and planting sites.

That sounds pretty obvious, but it's amazing how nearly all of us have a tendency to do things haphazardly.  When cooking, for example, you reach into the cupboard for an ingredient, and use it.  You then have the choice of setting it down on the counter with all of the other cans, bottles, ingredients, and utensils, or of placing it back in the cupboard from whence it came.  Putting it back while it's still in your hand means that you only have to handle it once, plus you won't have to hesitate while asking yourself where it should go, and your kitchen will require little cleanup afterward.

Having a cadence means being orderly.  An orderly person knows where everything is.  It means not having to waste time looking for something.  One of my rules is that I should be able to get up in the dark and put my hand on the item that I want without having to turn on the light and wake my wife.  If the power goes off in the night, I know where the flashlight, candles, and matches are.

Having a cadence means being constant.  My wife's personality is constant.  I have never seen an outburst of emotion or temper from her.  I've never had to doubt her love for me, or wonder where I stand in her estimation.  I've never wondered if I'd have anything but a happy greeting from her when I came home.  This is one of the most valuable human characteristics that a person can have.  Marjorie is steady.

Cadence means rhythmic or measured flow.  I've known people who slide out of bed in the morning onto their knees to pray.  They do it every day.  Their lives have rhythm.  I admire that, but I'm not one of them.  Instead, I rise in the morning, sit down with my study materials, and begin my study session with prayer.  I know others who pray and meditate during their morning walk or jog.  One practice is neither better nor worse than the others.  The important thing is cadence, or having a rhythm, to insure that the good and right things happen every day in our lives.