You’ve heard it said, “The devil is in the details”, but we can find angels there too.

For non-detail-oriented people, details can seem boring, too much bother, and a bit superfluous. It’s true, over-attention to miniscule details does overcomplicate issues, mire people and groups into stagnation, delay necessary action, and cause division. While the detail-people examine the finer points of everything, the non-detail people squirm impatiently, consider them a pain-in-the-proverbial, and plead “let’s get on with the show!”

We need both—those who remind others to “see the forest through the trees”, and those who remind the former that the trees, properly placed according to shape and size, make up the forest.

Anyone who leads, mentors, or instructs others has discovered what happens if even the most minute detail goes missing from the directions given. Their followers, colleagues, students, and children notice as well. Neither are happy with the result—a wrong finished product, someone not arriving to their destination, things not done right, wasted effort, “wasted breath”—each of these blamed on the other person. “This isn’t what I told you to do!”, answered (either directly or silently) by, “Well, your instructions weren’t exactly clear!” “Why didn’t you come? I waited for hours!”, answered by, “I got lost and couldn’t find the place!” Both have had to find out the hard way what happens when directions aren’t complete.

But instead of blaming each other, both parties can aim toward clarity and completeness in direction-giving and receiving.

Leaders/instructors:

• Give directions as if you were receiving them and have no idea what to do. Consider what you’d need to know in that case.
• Don’t overcomplicate matters with irrelevant information. Yes, information needs to be complete, but not obscured or buried under extra stuff that doesn’t matter and could cause confusion.
• Ask your follower, subordinate, mentee to repeat back what they’ve heard and perceive you telling them. Remember, communication hasn’t happened until the message is received and understood as intended by the sender. Make sure they’ve gotten what you want them to get.
• Use the above to see what’s misunderstood and/or incomplete. Then clarify and complete the directions. Then go back and repeat these two steps as many times as needed. The bother now will prevent much worse bother later.

Followers/subordinates:

• Pay attention to every detail given. After that, you can decide whether it’s relevant or not. You can’t sort what you don’t have, and you need every piece of vital information.
• Consider everything you need to know and whether any of that is missing.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for clarification and further information so you know exactly what you’re supposed to do and exactly how to get to where you’re supposed to arrive.

Here’s an example of what can (and did) happen when one “small” detail of information goes missing due to lack of sending or receiving:

Some years ago, while living in Indonesia, we visited friends in Singapore. One of those days we had a speaking engagement, so they gave us directions on how to get there by metro and then how to get back to their apartment. Everything went well getting to where we needed to go and arriving back to their apartment complex. Only one problem—they had forgotten to give us their apartment building number along with their apartment number. Just a small detail missing—except it made a big difference in a complex with over 100 buildings, that all looked alike! Now what? We could try to remember which building, or we could go building to building knocking on the correct apt. number door, or ask someone we saw, hoping they’d know our friends. Thankfully, we saw someone outside, asked him, and he knew our friends and their whole address! (The good Lord and His detail-angel to the rescue).

When we told our friends, they apologized profusely. We said, “Hey, it’s our fault for not making sure we had all the information we needed.”

Since then, we make sure to follow the checklists above as either leaders or followers when giving or receiving directions. Complete, as well as clear, information produces the desired outcome—which is why we often find angels “hiding” in the details.

After all, imagine what would have happened if the Lord hadn’t given exact details to Noah on how to build the Ark, or if Noah hadn’t listened and followed all of them. No one, including Noah, would’ve survived! (Gen. 6:13-22) “So Noah did these things; according to everything that God had commanded him, so he did.” (v.22)