Time and experience have taught me that I am horrible at keeping tack of details unless I make a concerted effort to do so. Though the years I have come to understand it has a lot to do with the way my brain is wired. (That’s an explanation – not an excuse.)

For example, I can tell you I have read a paper on health care, what issues it covers, where it was from and what the picture on the front page looked like. But, chances are, if I filed the paper away I will not be able to tell you where I put it. I don’t call it filing. I call it playing hide and seek with myself. The solution is to hire a really good administrative assistant and bribe them with whatever it takes to keep them happy. They may not know what the content of the paper was or why you want it back, but they can always retrieve it for you.

When I went to work in the Capitol after 14 years as a stay at home mom, time management became a big issue for me. Juggling parenting, service as a school board member, working a legislative session and being a wife proved to be a formidable task.

I had to train both myself and my three children that my brain was not a sticky note and if they expected me to take action on an issue or be at a particular place at a specific time, they needed to make sure the issue was entered into my Day-timer.  I explained to them that they might go to school for 12 years and have a graduation coming up, but if the date of the ceremony was not on my Day-timer there was no promise of my attendance. In fact, my children were the only ones given the authority to write a date in ink on my calendar.

Now, I also walked as wisdom as a parent. Those appointments that required my attendance that my children may not have had an incentive to place on the calendar – meetings with teachers, PTA meetings, doctors’ appointments – were entered by me.

My Day-timer, since augmented by a computer and Blackberry, catches all my appointments, notes on phone conversations, lists of things to do and any other pertinent information I may need to retrieve at some time in the future. My adult children (or husband) may still call my administrative assistant to make sure she puts an event of importance on my calendar. Or, they may send me a reminder on my Blackberry. Time and experience have expanded that proverb so that they understand the truth of “He who trusts in mom’s memory is a fool.”

The take away message for today is that it is folly to limit yourself to what your mind can handle. Walking in wisdom includes things as simple as finding and using the tools that enable you to amplify your effectiveness and as complex as trusting the Lord for the next answer you may be asked to give.

Just as learning to trust a Day-timer system to get you where you are supposed to be at the right time must become a habit, walking in wisdom must become habitual. Study Proverbs, spend time in prayer, and apply what you learn. Then, make it a habit to do it all again daily.

Eventually, you look around and find out that somewhere along the way you began walking in wisdom.

It is a joke in my office (sort of) that I am not paid to agree with my boss. It is true that the representative I work for has specifically told me he is not paying me to agree with him. The joke is the thought that anyone could pay me to agree to anything.

But, it is a common error that people in power (or who want to be in power) surround themselves with likeminded people and do not entertain ideas which are not already their own. My boss has taught me the lesson that he already knows what he thinks.  What he needs is to hear from people who will challenge him to think more deeply or differently about a circumstance to determine whether he should stay the course or change direction.

And so, my job is to analyze policy from a conservative perspective. I am paid to tell my boss what I know about a policy issue and how that issue will promote or violate conservative philosophy. Once I have done that, and not until I have done that, do I get to tell him what I think about a policy issue. The fact that I have worked with this particular legislator off and on for 15 years generally means we can reduce our conversations to shorthand or facial expressions because he pretty well knows what I think.

But, I do try to expand my horizons beyond those who agree with me in both my professional and personal life. In policy it is always good to know what lies ahead by understanding beliefs, motives and intentions of those in the arena. In the personal arena of my life I find I have learned the most about myself when I am put in circumstances that make me feel like a fish out of water.

Several years ago I went on a missions trip with a group of like-minded individuals to work in an orphanage in Turkey. Going into the trip, my greatest concerns were whether I would find anything I would be willing to eat (I’m picky) while I was there and how I would be able to communicate. I am so language illiterate that I can’t even speak Pig Latin.

Those concerns were quickly overshadowed when I entered the orphanage. In Turkey it is illegal to proselytize. So, Christian groups are only allowed to work with severely disabled children. Language is not a barrier when the children you work with are non-verbal. A hug and a smile convey the message. What I would eat or drink was not a consideration when I was told that children in that facility die every year from dehydration because there is no one to hold a cup to give them a drink of water.

The entire week was a series of what I know conflicting with what I was seeing. Sharing cups spreads germs. But a shared cup beats no cup. Unsafe playground equipment is a risk. But when a child may get outside only once every six months because there is no one there, you play around the risks. When I walked into a room with 20 disabled children on the floor it could be a depressing sight, except for the great joy that would light up on their faces just seeing us enter.

The moral of the story: Take the challenge to determine whether what you believe stands up to scrutiny. Don’t ever be afraid to sharpen the iron. The very best time to change direction is immediately after you determine you are headed the wrong way.

With basset hounds as the dogs of choice around our house, this verse loses some of it’s “umph.” A basset not only doesn’t care if you grab them by the ears, I think they may actually enjoy it. Our oldest basset, Samuel, has ears almost long enough to vie for the world record. Each ear is about a foot long. Of course, they are mostly designed to drag along the ground and funnel smell into his nose and not to enhance his hearing or listening abilities.

But, I digress. For purposes of today’s scripture, we will assume the dog in question is not a basset and that taking one by his ears will result in the loss of your hand or other significant injury. Perhaps the writer of this proverb was speaking from experience.

So it is when you intervene in an argument where you have no business. For example, as a grandmother, I never intervene when my daughter and granddaughter are engaging. (One reason is not my great wisdom so much as the fact that having raised the daughter, watching her with her daughter is a great spectator sport.) Likewise, disagreements between couples when your advice has not been requested are a “don’t go there” situation. That dog will always come back to bite you. If you sincerely care about someone, do not allow them to dump on someone they care about to you. Generally, God will give them the grace to overcome the circumstances, but you may yourself be holding a grudge because that grace has not extended to you.

But, the flip side of this issue is not that people are meddling in quarrels not their own as much as people are failing to engage in the battles they should be in. There are quarrels going on in our society today about key core values that many are failing to engage in. What is the definition of marriage? Does it matter if that definition changes? Who is responsible for the education and upbringing of children? Is it parents? Is it the “village?” If it is the village, who is responsible to pick up the pieces when the village idiots fail?  Why is killing unborn babies ever acceptable or legal? How much is too much on the tax rate?

I will never forget the first time I “grabbed the dog by the ears” on a public policy issue. I was not involved in politics or policy at the time. I was just a mom and I took exception to the school district refusing to let me see a copy of a test my children were taken. Once I got a hold of that dog, I refused to turn loose. It resulted in my serving on a local school board, working on the re-write of the Texas Education Code and being launched on the path where I walk today.

Along the way that dog chewed on me quite a bit. But, it is always better to be bitten for something you are supposed to do than for something you weren’t supposed to do. And, I would far rather sport the scars of those battles than suffer the consequences of refusing to battle.

So, go get caught up on your shots and grab some dogs by the ears!

Disclosure: My devotionals for the next few days may consider material that is political in nature. My goal is to apply scripture to the governing process. I will vote Republican in the upcoming election. The Republican candidate was neither my first nor my second choice for who I would like to see in the White House. My choice is based on the application of the Word of God to the circumstances at hand. The single thing that would make me change my vote would be a conviction by the Holy Spirit that I am wrong in that application.

It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.

Proverbs 25:2

Yesterday we finished the media coverage of “all Olympics all the time” and today we have begun the “all Democrat Convention all the time” coverage. Truthfully, I probably won’t record much of it to review at a later date. (Same goes for the Republican Convention, by the way.) In fact, my personal choice would be to ignore the entire thing if I could.

However, when the Lord made me and decided I would be a policy analyst, He created within me an inquiring spirit that prevents me from taking anything for granted, makes me question even what I know, and requires me to strive to understand what makes people both agree or disagree with me.

So the Internet engine was revved up this morning after I heard a reporter refer to Democrat candidate Barack Obama as the “embodiment of the American Dream.” I’m confused. I have read The Blueprint for Change, Obama’s plan for America. I couldn’t imagine how those policies could equate to the embodiment of what I consider to be the American Dream. Then I began to wonder, what exactly is meant when they (then media, politicians, etc.) use the term “The American Dream?” What is the history of that term? Has it changed with time?

The American Dream was a phrase first used in 1931 in the book The Epic of America written by James Truslow Adams. He said:

The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.

The light bulb came on for me. Obama has achieved the American Dream. Against great odds,  he came from a difficult childhood to be a candidate to run to be president of the United States. The problem is, his policies indicate that he doesn’t trust in other people’s ability to do the same. While hard work and personal initiative might have worked for him and his family, his policies indicate that other people cannot achieve the same results without government assistance.

At least, I hope that is what he believes. The alternative is that he understands that political power is increased when you make a constituency enslaved to the government dole.

Lord, show us how to search out the things You would have us know about the candidates who want to lead us. Give us wisdom during this election cycle.