Objectivity of a General
General Robert E. Lee was asked what he thought of a fellow officer in the Confederate army who had made some derogatory remarks about him. Lee rated him as being very satisfactory. The person who asked the question seemed perplexed. “General,” he said, “I guess you don’t know what he’s been saying about you.” “I know,” answered Lee. “But I was asked my opinion of him, not his opinion of me!”
Severe Judgment
A Christian lady wanted a parrot that could talk. She looked in several shops before finding one. The owner told her, however, that the parrot had been previously owned by a bartender and though he could say anything, he also on occasion used profanity. She told him she would buy him anyway and teach him to say good things. Everything went well for about a month. He learned to say “Praise the Lord” and a number of other Christian words and phrases. One day she forgot to feed him and when she came into the house, she heard him cursing. She grabbed him up and said, “I told you not to talk that way. I’ll teach you never to do it again.” So she put him in the deep freeze and shut the door. A few minutes later she took him out and asked, “Have you learned your lesson?” The bird shivered and replied, “Yes, ma’am.” She asked, “Are you going to talk that way anymore?” The parrot replied, “No, ma’am.”
About seven months went by and not a bit of bad language. Apparently the bird was cured of his rascally habits. Then one day, she forgot to feed him, water him, or change his cage. When she returned home that day, he was carrying on worse than ever. She grabbed him and put him back in the freezer, but forgot him for some time. He was almost frozen to death when she thought of him. She put him in his cage to thaw out. Finally, he began to move and talk a little and she asked him again, “Did you learn your lesson?” “Yes, ma’am,” he retorted. Then he sat there quietly for a few more minutes shivering and said, “Can I ask you a question?” She answered, “Yes.” The parrot said, “I thought I knew all the bad words there were, but just what did that turkey in there say?”
Reciprocity
At a party, a doctor who was chatting with a lawyer was interrupted by a woman who insisted on telling the doctor about a pain in her leg and asking him what to do about it. The doctor advised her. Then, after she went away, he asked the lawyer: “Do I have a right to send that woman a bill for my professional service?” The attorney replied, “Certainly.” The next day the doctor sent the woman a bill. He also received a bill—from the lawyer.
Judged by His Own Law
A new law on drunken driving in Louisiana is now one of the toughest in the nation. There is a mandatory prison sentence for anyone convicted of driving while intoxicated. Getting it passed was a major victory for various groups against drunk driving, and they could not have gotten it passed if it wasn’t for the help of one particular state legislator who sponsored the bill. It wasn’t long after the new law took effect that the first person to be arrested for driving under the influence was brought before the judge and found guilty and was sentenced to his prison term. Who was he? The same legislator who sponsored the bill! “For the way you judge, you will be judged, and by your standard of measure it shall be measured to you.”
Besides Being Forgiven
Many of us are like the little boy who had broken the glass of a streetlamp. Greatly disturbed, he asked his father, “What shall I do?” “Do?” exclaimed his father, “why we must report it and ask what you must pay, then go and settle it.” This practical way of dealing with the matter was not what the boy was looking for, and he whimpered, “I—I though all I had to do was ask God to forgive me.”