Planning for a Permanent Work
[
See also pp. 321-326, “Binding Off Thoroughly.”
]
Surface Plowing—A Limited Harvest—We are in danger of
spreading over more territory and starting more enterprises than we can
possibly attend to properly, and they will become a wearing burden in
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absorbing means. There is danger to be guarded against of overdoing
some branches of the work and leaving some important parts of the
Lord’s vineyard to be neglected. To undertake and plan a large amount
of work and do nothing perfectly, would be a bad plan. We are to move
forward, but only in the counsel of God. We must not get so far above
the simplicity of the work we lose our spiritual perception and it will
be impossible to look after the many accumulated lines of work and
enterprises entered into without sacrificing our best helpers to keep
things in order. Life and health must be regarded.
While we should ever be ready to follow the opening providence
of God, we should lay no larger plans in places where our work is
represented, nor occupy more ground than there is help and means to
bind off the work well. Surface plowing means a limited, scattered
harvest. Keep up and increase the interest already started, until the
cloud moves, then follow it. While there are broader plans and fields
constantly opening for the laborers, our ideas and views must broaden
in regard to the workers who are to labor in new fields in the Lord’s
vineyard to bring souls into the truth.—
Letter 14, 1886
.
Spreading Too Thin—Let not the means at your disposal be spent
in so many places that nothing satisfactory is accomplished anywhere.
It is possible for the workers to spread their efforts over so much
territory that nothing will be properly done in the very places where, by
the Lord’s direction, the work should be strengthened and perfected.—
Letter 87, 1902
.
Thoroughness in Evangelistic Details—If our active tempera-
ment gathers in a large amount of work that we have not strength nor
the grace of Christ to do understandingly and with order and exac-
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