Christian Living

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Formula For Success
© 2008

by

Stephen A. Peterson


Andreanna McCullough, 17, woke up on a hot summer Oklahoma afternoon from a bad dream. In her dream, Andreanna was attempting to write a poem, but she couldn’t was unable to read, write or think. It was though she never learned any skills at all. As she prepared to go to a special writing class her mother helped her enrolled, Andreanna thought her dream just might be a warning of some sort.

While on her way home from her class, Andreanna stopped to watch a Master butcher cut a side of beef into the various cuts of meat. Dressed in white like a medical surgeon, the butcher moved quickly to the beef. His electric knife was the smallest knife she had ever seen—just a little bigger than a large pocket knife. Yet he cut off perfect cuts of meat with no more effort than how her mother cut soft butter to spread on her toast. Then he cut through bone like someone cutting celery. In twenty minutes he was done without hurting himself or anyone around him.

“You make it look very easy,” Andreanna said as the butcher cleaned up the cutting table.

He smiled a proud smile. “It’s really trickier than it looks.” He held up his little electric knife. “You’ve got to have good equipment. You can get a good butcher’s knife for sixty or seventy dollars, but my knife was my special design. This knife cost me three hundred dollars.” He dried the table such that it shined so brilliantly that one could almost see her or his face. “Good equipment, learning your skill to the best of your ability and maintaining your equipment to its highest quality ensures good cuts of meat. This butcher’s knife is so sharp that it will cut through concrete without a problem. I keep the blade as sharp as a razor and the other part oiled and fixed. All of this work makes me an in demand butcher. I’m not confined to just this restaurant. I’m in demand all over the city earning the best wages. I also enjoy what I do. I have fun as a butcher while providing a service that is in demand.”

As Andreanna made her way home, she sensed she had been given a teaching moment by God Himself through the butcher. When she arrived home, Andreanna made a list of all of the things she needed to do before she took her written work each day to be evaluated by her tutor—her outline, topics of interest, thesaurus/dictionary, rough drafts. Just developing a list made Andreanna feel confident about herself and her ability to be a better than average writer—her goal in life. She was confident that she would be one of the best prepared students in the class.

“Good equipment, learning your skill to the best of your ability, and maintaining your equipment/skills” seemed like a formula she felt she could apply to writing as well as to other day to day circumstances, Andreanna thought to herself.

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