Instant On and Default Full Speed

 

 

Living Translation: My Life is an autobiography by Bruce Smith, president of Wycliffe Associates until recently. He was also the President over the starting and growth years of MAST. It is the story of a man who sees everything before him as either unimportant, or on fire, and he is the only fireman around. In his own words he writes, “Ever since I can remember I’ve done things quickly. I didn’t walk to school, I ran… I treat email like instant messaging. This can drive people around me crazy, but it’s how I’m wired - instant on and default full speed.”[i]  

In his review of this book Karl Franklin, Ph.D., Senior Anthropology Consultant and linguist for the esteemed Bible translation organization SIL, writes, “Smith did not start out with Bible translation in mind and confesses that he has not done any Bible translation himself. Rather, he sees himself as a man of action, running the race and involving multitudes in his vision…And Smith is never short of proactive illustrations: he has only to turn to himself as pilot, athlete, administrator, and always at the leading edge. Others may discuss and do long range planning; Smith is in action and solving problems.”[ii]

A major theme of Living Translation: My Life is Planning is a waste of time.

My story seems to be that planning is a waste of time. p43
I can barely plan what will happen next month. p66

If we had a 15 year plan, I can guarantee you it would not have included providing communications support. p67
The rational response would have been, Sorry, its not part of our plan, But because we were intentionally opportunistic my response was, Sure. p67

I believe in planning but experience shows that even the best estimates and predictions of the future are extremely imprecise. p66

Trying to do something sooner or better opens you up to criticism from people for whom later and mediocre are more comfortable. p100

 

Lest you think this is a consistent message, however, the book is also filled with multiple contrary points, such as:

God prepared everyone with the necessary experience God is the Master Planner. p70
By quantifying these, and other variables, we came up with an equation for measuring the strategic impact of all of our flight programs. p76
I also learned very quickly that failing to plan led to fairly predictable failure in flight. p42
The clear message was that thorough planning would predict success and prevent problems. p43

 

The difference that I see between his advice about when to plan and when not to plan is that when he was a pilot and there was a risk of a crash then preparation and planning is good. When the work is Bible Translation then the message is that faster is better for him and thus for everyone.

Written before the MAST process started, this book doesn’t detail his perspective on the MAST process, but I do read of a man who rushes through life and it doesn’t surprise me that he championed a Bible translation process that is so American it has to speed up every step of the long process.

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[i] Smith, Bruce. Living Translation: My Story. Xulon Press, 2013. P64.

[ii] https://www.amazon.com/Living-Translation-Bruce-Smith/dp/162839630X