I was playing Nerf Tag in the yard with my son and the competiton was fairly even. I was given the gun that has 20 shot capacity and he chose the gun that has an 18 shot capacity but also has extra clips. After the we shot all of our rounds he proceeded to load another clip. Since mine does not take clips I had to pick up mine off the ground. When we returned to the game I had only a few bullets and he had an entire clip. I figured that I was a sitting duck with his obvious advantage but as I began to fire he returned no Nerf darts. He was disappointed in the outcome so as we sat and reloaded and looked at his gun we determined that the darts were loaded incorrectly. And I told him that he needed to know his weapon and be sure he had bullets in his gun. This reminded me of a principle that I had written for the study series “21 Days of Patience” below is an excerpt of this principle.

Bullets in your gun
• Be prepared for all that you know is coming
• Load your memory with useful information
• Have all of the things in your control accomplished
• Stack the Deck

The saying “luck favors the prepared” is true but could be altered to “the prepared find favor”. Once you understand your goals in life, it is time to prepare for you mission which is filled with tests and trials. If your goal is some athletic endeavor  at least two areas for which you must ready your self, physical fitness and the technical training. There is no sense in saying, “I do not know how to get there”. Stack the deck in your favor by training. If your goal is to spend more quality time with your family then remove some of the hindrances television, cellular phones and show up with family friendly plans that do not involve massive amounts of money and energy from you. Anything new requires new information to load into the human computer. Nominal goals oblige you to obtain information so that the deck is stacked in your favor. I watch my son read and re-read the video game manual and then watch him dominate that realm. Whenever we get a new appliance or toy I try to read the manual in its entirety including the legal. This store of information comes in handy almost every time. The deck is now stacked in my favor because less operating stress is awesome, less break down is awesome and more of life looking the way it was planned is totally awesome.

The prepared find favor.