Limited Vision
Eight-year-old Frank looked forward for weeks to this particular Saturday because his father promised to take him fishing if the weather was suitable. There hadn’t been any rain for weeks and as Saturday approached, Frank was confident of the fishing trip. But, wouldn’t you know it, when Saturday morning dawned, it was raining heavily and it appeared that it would continue all day.
Frank wandered around the house, peering out the window and grumbling more than a little. “Seems like the Lord would know that it would have been better to have the rain yesterday than today,” he complained to his father, who was sitting by the fireplace, enjoying a good book. His father tried to explain to Frank how badly the rain was needed, how it would make the flowers grow and bring much needed moisture to the farmers’ crops. But Frank was adamant. “It just isn’t right,” he said over and over.
Then, about three o’clock, the rain stopped. Still time for some fishing, and quickly the gear was loaded, and they were off to the lake. Whether it was the rain or some other reason, the fish were biting hungrily and father and son returned with a full string of fine, big fish.
At supper, when some of the fish were ready, Frank’s mom asked him to say grace. Frank did—and concluded his prayer by saying, “And Lord, if I sounded grumpy earlier today it was because I couldn’t see far enough ahead.”
No doubt much of our complaining is because we “can’t see far enough ahead.”
A Great Invention
If you could build a small package, something small enough to carry in your coat pocket, a machine which would instantly start and stop, in which you could instantly reverse yourself or go forward, which would require no batteries or other energy sources, and which would provide you with full information on an entire civilization, what would you have? A book! –Isaac Asimov
God’s Needs
John Wesley once received a note that said: “The Lord has told me to tell you that He doesn’t need your book-learning, your Greek and your Hebrew.”
Wesley answered, “Thank you, sir. Your letter was superfluous, however, as I already knew the Lord has no need for my ‘book-learning,’ as you put it. However, although the Lord has not directed me to say so, on my own responsibility I would like to say to you that the Lord does not need your ignorance either.”
Making Truth Relevant
In trying to explain something to others, it’s wise to remember this fundamental rule of communications: “One specific is worth a hundred generalities.” In 1847 the great naturalist Agassiz gave an address at a meeting of teacher. The subject was grasshoppers. “I passed round a jar of the insects and made every teacher hold one while I lectured,” Agassiz recorded. And if a teacher dropped his grasshopper, Agassiz waited until he picked it up. He insisted that his abstract words be related to the real animal they held in their palms.
An Active Flame
The mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled. –Plutarch
The Great Value of Books
Commenting on 2 Timothy 4:13, where Paul asks Timothy to bring him a cloak, books, and the parchments, Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote the following words:
“He is inspired, yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, yet he wants books! He has seen the Lord, yet he wants books. He has had a wider experience than most men, yet he wants books! He has been caught up into the third heaven, and has heard things which it is unlawful to utter, yet he wants books! He has written the major part of the New Testament, yet he wants books!”
Send Us Books
In 1814 the Methodists of Australia sent an urgent appeal to the Methodist Missionary Society in London:
“Send us a preacher. Send a faithful servant of the Lord to us. Disappoint us not! Deny us not! Leave us not forsaken in this benighted land. We call upon you on behalf of our children: let them not be left to perish.
“We call upon you on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves: perishing, dying sinners, outcasts of society, leave them not in their blood. Send us one of yourselves, with a good supply of wearing apparel, house furniture, and particularly, books.”
Feeble Reed
Man is a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. –Blaise Pascal
Confusion Begins
The first real confusion in a child’s life is when he decided girls are better than frogs, but he isn’t sure why.
Teacher’s Credentials
Sometime ago, there was a teacher who celebrated her eightieth birthday. It proved to be a marvelous occasion, highlighted by the presence of a great number of her former students. It seemed that she taught school in one of the worst sections of Baltimore. Before she came to that school to teach, there had been repeated instances of juvenile crime and delinquency. When she began her work, there came a change. The change in time became noticeable with so many of her students turning out to be good citizens, men and women of good character. Some became doctors, others lawyers, educators, ministers, honorable craftsmen, and skilled technicians. It was no accident, therefore, that on important anniversaries like her eightieth birthday she was remembered with gratitude and love from a great number of her students.
A newspaper got wind of this celebration and sent a reported to interview her. He asked, among other things, what was her secret that made her teaching so rewarding? She said: “Oh, I don’t know. When I look at the young teachers in our schools today, so well-equipped with training and learning, I realize that I was ill-prepared to teach. I had nothing to give but love.” –Don E. McKenzie
The Process of Learning
It is remarkable how much you have to know before you realize how little you know.
Deprivation
Man can live without air for a very few minutes, without water for a number of days, without food for about two months, without a new thought for years on end.
So Much for Training
Helene Hanff, author of 84 Charing Cross Road, first went to New York City nearly forty years ago after winning a playwriting contest. She writes about the results of that contest:
“The Theatre Guild knocked its brains out training twelve of us to be playwrights because the year before we won our contest, two other contest winners had been given their fellowship money and went wandering off on their own. The Theatre Guild knew this was very bad because playwrights didn’t need money as much as they needed training, so they held seminars for us and we went to all the plays on Broadway and we took lessons in how to produce, write, act, and direct. And when the year was up, everybody agreed it was a great success—except that not one of us ever became a Broadway playwright. The two writers who had been given the money and went off wandering on their own with no training were Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller.”
Practice, Practice
Hank, a landscape contractor, had his first full-fledged job. Of course, he didn’t want to appear to be the rank amateur he knew he was, so he feigned a casual kind of nonchalance and expertise. One of the first tasks he had to tackle was blasting out some stumps with dynamite for a farmer. Since the farmer was watching, he went to some length to measure out the fuses and set the dynamite—just as if he really knew what he was doing. But his problem was he really didn’t know how much dynamite would be just right to do the job.
When he was all set up, he breathed a prayer that he had enough dynamite packed under each stump, and yet not too much to blow them all to kingdom come. The moment of truth came. Hank looked at the farmer with a knowing look of what he hoped came across as confidence and pushed down the plunger. A stump rose high in the air with a resounding boom and arched magnificently over towards his pickup truck and landed right on the roof of the cab, demolishing it.
The farmer turned to Hank and said, “Son, you didn’t miss it by much—just a few feet. With a bit more practice, you’ll be able to land those suckers in the truck bed every time.”