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Perseverance
【Discouragement】The devil decided to have a garage sale.
Ono the day of sale, his tools were placed for public inspection, each being
marked with its sale price. There were a treacherous lot of implements: hatred,
envy, jealousy, deceit, lust, lying, pride, and so on.
Set
apart from the rest was a harmless-looking tool. It was quite worn and yet
priced very high.
“What
is the name of this tool?” asked one of the customers, pointing to it.
“That
is discouragement,” Satan replied.
“Why
have you priced it so high?”
“Because
it is more useful to me than the others. I can pry open and get inside a man’s
heart with that, even when I cannot get near him with the other tools. It is
badly worn because I use it on almost everyone, since so few people know it
belongs to me.”
The
devil’s price for discouragement was high because it is still his favorite
tool, and he is still using it on God’s people.
【Endurance】Several years ago
a man reported his observations of the effects of a hurricane on a southeastern
Gulf Coast town. As he walked up and down the ravaged streets, he observed that
the palm trees had been uprooted and flung about. Once tall and majestic, their
root systems were too shallow to withstand the hurricane force winds. But as he
proceeded, he came upon a lone oak tree. The leaves had been blown away and
some of the smaller branches ripped off, but the roots had gone deep, and the
tree held its position. And in due season it would again produce leaves.
So
it is with us. If we are to endure in times of great stress and difficulty, we
must beforehand have put down a depth of character that will sustain the blows
of the trial.
【Endurance】”Our men were
not braver than the enemy. They were brave five minutes longer.”—attributed to Lord Wellington after the
great victory won over Napoleon at
【Failure】John F. Kennedy
said, “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan; no one wants to
claim it.”
【Failure】In 1879, a child
was born to a poor Jewish merchant. In early life the lad suffered a haunting
sense of inferiority because of the anti-Semitic feeling he encountered on
every hand. Shy and introspective, the boy was so slow in learning that his
parents had him examined by specialists to see if he was normal. In 1895, he
failed his entrance examinations at the Polytechnicum in
Who
was he? The man who formulated the theory of relativity, Albert Einstein, one
of the greatest geniuses who ever lived. He never let early failures defeat
him!
【Perseverance】Two frogs fell
into a can of cream,
Or
so I’ve heard it told.
The
sides of the can were shiny and steep,
The
cream was deep and cold.
“Oh,
what’s the use?” croaked number one.
“Tis
fate, no help’s around.
Good=bye,
my friend!
Good-bye,
sad world!”
And
weeping still, he drowned.
But
number two, of sterner stuff,
Dog-paddled
in surprise.
The
while he wiped his creamy face,
And
dried his creamy eyes.
“I’ll
swim awhile at least,” he said,
Or
so I’ve heard he said;
“It
really wouldn’t help the world,
If
one more frog were dead.”
An
hour or two he kicked and swam,
Not
once he stopped to mutter,
But
kicked and kicked and swam and kicked,
Then
hopped out, via butter!
【Perseverance】Sometime go out
and watch a stonecutter hammering away at a rock. He might hit the rock a
hundred times without so much as a crack showing in it. Then, suddenly, at the
hundred and first blow the rock splits in two. Was it the one blow that split
the rock? Only in an immediate sense, for that one blow would have accomplished
nothing if it were not for all that had gone before.
【Perseverance】In the movie Chariots
of Fire, young Harold Abrahams, a champion sprinter, had just suffered his
first-ever defeat. After the race he sat alone, pouting in the bleachers. When
his girlfriend tried to encourage him, he bellowed, “If I can’t win, I won’t
run!” To which she wisely replied, “If you don’t run, you can’t win.” Abrahams
went on to win the 1924 Olympic Gold Medal in the hundred-meter run.
【Perseverance】By perseverance
the snail reached the ark.
【Perseverance】It is better to
limp in the way, than to run with swiftness out of it.—John Calvin
【Perseverance】William Carey, when asked about his great
accomplishments in his work of translating the Bible into Indian languages and
dialects, said: “I am not a genius, just a plodder.” But what a plodder! In
forty years of labor, he translated all or portions of the Bible into
thirty-four of the languages and dialects of
【Perseverance】Many years ago in England there was a
small boy who talked with a lisp. While growing up, he was never a scholar.
When war came along, they rejected him because “we need men.” He once rose to
address the House of Commons, and they all walked out. He often spoke to empty
chairs and echoes.
One
day he became prime minister of
【Perseverance】The following is attributed to “Gentleman
Jim” Corbett, who held the heavyweight boxing title for five years at the end
of the nineteenth century:
“Fight
one more round. When your feet are so tired that you have to shuffle back to
the center of the ring, fight one more round. When your arms are so tired that
you can hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more round. When
your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black and you are so tired that you
wish your opponent would crack you on the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one
more round-remembering that the man who fights one more round is never whipped.
【Perseverance】Thomas Edison gave us some wise thoughts
regarding failure. It is said that the famous inventor made thousands of trials
before he got his celebrated electric light to operate.
One
day, a workman to whom he had given a task said, “Mr. Edison, it cannot be
done.”
This
is the same man who also said, “Genius is one percent inspiration and
ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
【Perseverance】At the close of the first day of the
Battle of Shiloh, with serious Union reverses, General U.S. Grant was met by
his greatly discouraged chief engineer, James McPherson, who said: “Things look
bad, General. We’ve lost half our artillery and a third of the infantry. Our
line is broken and we are pushed back nearly to the river.” Grant made no
reply, and McPherson impatiently asked what he intended to do. “Do? Why re-form
the lines and attack at daybreak. Won’t they be surprised!” Surprised they
were. The Confederate troops were routed before nine o’clock that morning.
No
one is defeated until he gives up.
【Perseverance】Here is the biography of a failure…
A
man who had less than three years of formal education failed in business in
’31, was elected to the legislature in ’34, defeated for speaker in ’38,
defeated for elector in ’40, defeated for Congress in ’43, elected to Congress
in ’46 and defeated in ’48, defeated for Senate in ’55, defeated for the Vice
Presidential nomination in ’56, defeated for the Senate in ’58.
His
name? Abraham Lincoln.
【Perseverance】Rocky, the motion picture that won three Academy Awards,
tells the story of a small-time boxer given the opportunity of a lifetime-the
chance to fight the undisputed world heavyweight boxing champ. After weeks of
punishing, grueling training, on the evening of the fight Rocky finally
admitted the futility of his effort, “Who am I trying to kid?” he pondered,
“I’m not even in the same class with da guy. But I gotta go da distance. I gotta
go da distance.”
Rocky
Balboa set as his goal to go all fifteen rounds. He wanted to hang in there
when he knew every muscle in his body would scream to quit. He wanted to endure
under pressure. As a fighter, he wanted to go the full distance. The fight began,
but in round one Rocky was knocked down. The count commenced, but after wildly
shaking his head back and forth, he struggled to his feet and lasted not just
one or two more rounds, but all fifteen. He was able to go the distance
because, during training, his body had been subjected to grueling preparation.
Daily he had driven himself to the point of exhaustion. One-arm push-ups,
back-bending sit-ups, sprinting, sparring-this had all been part of his
schedule of training.
The
design of a demanding training schedule enabled Rocky to endure. Perseverance
in any great test comes as a result of disciplined preparation in the ordinary
days.
【Perseverance】Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times. So keep
on swinging!
【Perseverance】A teenager had decided to quit high
school, saying he was just fed up with it all. His father was trying to
convince him to stay with it. “Son,” he said, “you just can’t quit. All the
people who are remembered in history didn’t quit. Abe Lincoln, he didn’t quit.
Thomas Edison, he didn’t quit. Douglas MacArthur, he didn’t quit. Elmo
McCringle…”
“Who?”
the son burst in. “Who’s Elmo McCringle?”
“See,”
the father replied, “you don’t remember him. He quit!”
【Perseverance】I would rather fail in a cause that will
someday triumph, than triumph in a cause that will someday fail.—Woodrow Wilson
【Perseverance】One of my favorite quotations was given to us by the great Samuel
Johnson. He said, "Great works
are performed not by strength but by perseverance. He that shall walk with vigor, three hours
a day, will pass, in seven years, a space equal to the circumference of the
globe."