The one percent - 1/2

The Greeks used to leave one particular stone out of every building that they built, just so that they didn’t insult the “gods” by building something perfect themselves. From memory it was located at the base and behind the pediment (That’s the triangular roof façade at the front of their buildings) and was therefore not visible to the public. Very clever - perfection, but deliberately not quite so.

I reckon there might be a bit of Greek in me somewhere back yonder, because as a big picture guy, I’m constantly challenged to complete the minor details and finish a job. The last 1% however is more important than you’d think and can be pretty dangerous if not taken note of.

An expensive boat will sink when launched without a bung. I know. I’ve spent a lot of time with boats and I’ve tried it more than once. Stand at a boat-ramp for an hour on a busy summers Saturday morning and you’ll see a lot of others agree. Even if 99% of the boat is watertight that little bung-hole can bring the whole ship down. Same thing in space when reentering into the atmosphere and there’s a ceramic protection tile loose.

Aviators are not happy when they are short just the last 1% of fuel for their journey and have to ditch their aircraft.

My piano is a double iron frame Monington and Weston, a nice little thing that really “sings” when it’s in tune. I had it tuned a while back but just one string on just one note slipped a little and it drove me nuts until it was fixed. A 99% tuned piano wasn’t good enough, sorry.

My father was a watchmaker and if he reassembled a watch with just one part missing or left on the bench it was right back inside to reassemble it again. It had to be perfect or the watch simply wouldn’t work properly.

In the sales process, you need all the bits together. You can’t have 99% of a sale. You can qualify to your hearts content; you can relationship build till the cows come home, but if you don’t get the order, the deal’s simply not done.

Same thing with that speeding ticket. You can drive on the speed limit all the way from one to another but if you just happen to speed the once by the speed camera trap, the other 99% of obedience means little. Banks (bless their lovely little cotton socks) seem to delight in bouncing cheques for $100.00 and charging your $25 or more when you only had $99.00 in the account, or more likely you had $100.00 or more, and they deducted their fees, then bounced the cheque. Rugby is a game of 80 minutes, not 79. And so it goes on and on. The last little one percent can often be critical.

I meet a lot of good people who hang on to the theory that God will understand at how hard they’ve tried, and how good they’ve been and never stolen and never killed anyone and always given to the Sallies when they came knocking. Some of them even say that they’ve been to church every Easter and Christmas since they were knee-high to a grasshopper too. Some of the really religious ones also talk about tithing and penances and other stuff that scares me and makes me feel inferior before they finish telling me how good they’ve been.

Well, it’s not my wish to upset these guys but this theory needs a little reality check actually, because according to the Good Book, such thinking (which the theologians really clever people call a “Gospel of Works”) doesn’t stack up. My read of it is that if we go down this track, we’ve gotta do it ALL right and be perfect - like, as in 100%. As far as I can see, God tells us that 99% isn’t going to cut the mustard.

Here’s the rub:

For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
James 2:10

This “one point” sounds mighty like the “one percent” above if you ask me.

The answer out of this tricky no-hope situation where the last one per cent is missing, is to find another solution. Those clever people (yup - them theologians again) call it the Gospel of Faith, not Works, but whatever it is, the one that leans on Jesus, rather than our own 99% is the VICTUS IN AMBITUS way.