If there’s one person who truly had faith in himself, it was Thomas Alva Edison. This American inventor had only three months of formal schooling. And yet, history records show that he knew more failures than successes. For 13 months, Edison kept on searching for a filament that would stand the stress of electric current. As he pondered whether he would be able to discover the elusive thing, he got a note from people backing his experiment that they would no longer be giving additional funds for what he was then doing.
News like that may bring a person to quit, but not Edison. In fact, it did not deter him from continuing his work. He refused to admit defeat and worked without sleep for two more days and nights. Eventually, he managed to insert one of the crude carbonized threads into a vacuum-sealed bulb. “When we turned on the current,” he recalled, “the sight we had so long desired finally met our eyes!”
Before that, however, Edison had to endure a string of failures. “What a waste! We have tried no less than 700 experiments and nothing has worked. We are not a bit better off than when we started,” a couple of men who were working alongside him said. He just shrugged this comment, telling them, “Oh yes, we are! We now know 700 things that won’t work. We’re closer than we’ve ever been before.”
However, the story did end there. When Edison finished doing the first electric bulb ever, he handed a finished bulb to a young helper. The lad carried it nervously up the stairs step by step. At the very last moment, he dropped it.
The whole team had to work another 24 hours to make another bulb. When it was done, Edison looked around and then handed it to the same boy. The bulb changed history but the confidence the inventor had given to that boy definitely changed his life forever. Edison knew that more than the bulb was at stake. He had given the boy a second chance. That faith in him probably changed the boy’s life.
“We live by faith or we do not live at all,” said Harold Walker. “Either we venture – or we vegetate. If we venture, we do so by faith simply because we cannot know the end of anything at its beginning. We risk marriage on faith or we stay single. We prepare for a profession by faith or we give up before we start. By faith we move mountains of opposition or we are stopped by molehills.”
The New American Webster Handy College Dictionary defines faith as “belief without proof.” It also means “confidence” and “reliance.” To William Wordsworth, “Faith is a passionate intuition.”
Having a hard time understanding what faith really is? Martin Luther King, Jr. describes, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Poet Rabindranath Tagore has this view: “Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark.”
“To me,” said John Dewey, “faith means not worrying.” The late Bishop William A. Quayle used to tell of an experience during a sleepless night. After rolling and tossing far into the night, he said that he seemed to hear God’s voice telling him to go on to sleep and let God run the world the rest of the night.
Faith can move mountains, but don’t be surprised if God hands you a shovel. In his book, The Edge of Adventure, Bruce Larson tells a story about a letter found in a baking powder tin which is wired to the handle of a pump. It offered the only hope of drinking water on the seldom-used trail across a desert. The letter in the tin read as follows:
“This pump is all right as of June 1955. I put a new leather sucker washer into it, and it ought to last several years. But this leather washer dries out and the pump has got to be primed. Under the white rock, I buried a bottle of water. There’s enough water in it to prime the pump, but not if you drink some first. Pour in about one-quarter, and let her soak to wet the leather. Then pour in the rest medium fast and pump like crazy. You’ll get water. The well has never run dry. Have faith.”
If you were the person who found the letter, what would you do? You are very thirsty and there’s immediate water. Will you do what you had been instructed to do? A postscript of the letter reads: “Don’t go drinking up the water (in the bottle) first. Prime the pump with it first, and you’ll get all you can hold.”
Hebrews 11:1 states: “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Joshua was a hard-headed person, so to speak. When a flood hit his area, he climbed to his roof. A rescue boat came by but Joshua called back to their offer of help; “No, thanks. I have faith in the Lord. He will save me.”
The waves came higher and Joshua scrambled to the highest part of his roof. Another boat came by to save him, but Joshua waved them off, professing his faith that the Lord would save him. When the waves began lapping his feet, he pulled himself to the tip of the roof. A helicopter swooped down to save him, but Joshua was still depending on the Lord.
Of course you know what happened next. Joshua got drowned. When he stood before the Lord, he complained, “Lord, I had such faith in you. Why didn’t you save me?” To which the Lord replied, “What more do you want from me? I sent you two boats and a helicopter?”
A famous heiress keeps her priceless collection of jewels in the vault of a large bank. One of her prize possessions is a very valuable string of pearls. It is a scientific fact that pearls lose their original luster if not worn once in a while in contact with the human body.
So once a week, a bank secretary, guarded by two plainclothesmen, wears these priceless pearls to lunch. This brief contact with the human body keeps them beautiful and in good condition.
Our faith is a lot like the pearl. It must be used in order to be useful. It must be worn out among the masses of mankind where faith and hope are needed. As someone puts it: “Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of faith. “
For comments, write me at henrytacio@gmail.com
News like that may bring a person to quit, but not Edison. In fact, it did not deter him from continuing his work. He refused to admit defeat and worked without sleep for two more days and nights. Eventually, he managed to insert one of the crude carbonized threads into a vacuum-sealed bulb. “When we turned on the current,” he recalled, “the sight we had so long desired finally met our eyes!”
Before that, however, Edison had to endure a string of failures. “What a waste! We have tried no less than 700 experiments and nothing has worked. We are not a bit better off than when we started,” a couple of men who were working alongside him said. He just shrugged this comment, telling them, “Oh yes, we are! We now know 700 things that won’t work. We’re closer than we’ve ever been before.”
However, the story did end there. When Edison finished doing the first electric bulb ever, he handed a finished bulb to a young helper. The lad carried it nervously up the stairs step by step. At the very last moment, he dropped it.
The whole team had to work another 24 hours to make another bulb. When it was done, Edison looked around and then handed it to the same boy. The bulb changed history but the confidence the inventor had given to that boy definitely changed his life forever. Edison knew that more than the bulb was at stake. He had given the boy a second chance. That faith in him probably changed the boy’s life.
“We live by faith or we do not live at all,” said Harold Walker. “Either we venture – or we vegetate. If we venture, we do so by faith simply because we cannot know the end of anything at its beginning. We risk marriage on faith or we stay single. We prepare for a profession by faith or we give up before we start. By faith we move mountains of opposition or we are stopped by molehills.”
The New American Webster Handy College Dictionary defines faith as “belief without proof.” It also means “confidence” and “reliance.” To William Wordsworth, “Faith is a passionate intuition.”
Having a hard time understanding what faith really is? Martin Luther King, Jr. describes, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Poet Rabindranath Tagore has this view: “Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark.”
“To me,” said John Dewey, “faith means not worrying.” The late Bishop William A. Quayle used to tell of an experience during a sleepless night. After rolling and tossing far into the night, he said that he seemed to hear God’s voice telling him to go on to sleep and let God run the world the rest of the night.
Faith can move mountains, but don’t be surprised if God hands you a shovel. In his book, The Edge of Adventure, Bruce Larson tells a story about a letter found in a baking powder tin which is wired to the handle of a pump. It offered the only hope of drinking water on the seldom-used trail across a desert. The letter in the tin read as follows:
“This pump is all right as of June 1955. I put a new leather sucker washer into it, and it ought to last several years. But this leather washer dries out and the pump has got to be primed. Under the white rock, I buried a bottle of water. There’s enough water in it to prime the pump, but not if you drink some first. Pour in about one-quarter, and let her soak to wet the leather. Then pour in the rest medium fast and pump like crazy. You’ll get water. The well has never run dry. Have faith.”
If you were the person who found the letter, what would you do? You are very thirsty and there’s immediate water. Will you do what you had been instructed to do? A postscript of the letter reads: “Don’t go drinking up the water (in the bottle) first. Prime the pump with it first, and you’ll get all you can hold.”
Hebrews 11:1 states: “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Joshua was a hard-headed person, so to speak. When a flood hit his area, he climbed to his roof. A rescue boat came by but Joshua called back to their offer of help; “No, thanks. I have faith in the Lord. He will save me.”
The waves came higher and Joshua scrambled to the highest part of his roof. Another boat came by to save him, but Joshua waved them off, professing his faith that the Lord would save him. When the waves began lapping his feet, he pulled himself to the tip of the roof. A helicopter swooped down to save him, but Joshua was still depending on the Lord.
Of course you know what happened next. Joshua got drowned. When he stood before the Lord, he complained, “Lord, I had such faith in you. Why didn’t you save me?” To which the Lord replied, “What more do you want from me? I sent you two boats and a helicopter?”
A famous heiress keeps her priceless collection of jewels in the vault of a large bank. One of her prize possessions is a very valuable string of pearls. It is a scientific fact that pearls lose their original luster if not worn once in a while in contact with the human body.
So once a week, a bank secretary, guarded by two plainclothesmen, wears these priceless pearls to lunch. This brief contact with the human body keeps them beautiful and in good condition.
Our faith is a lot like the pearl. It must be used in order to be useful. It must be worn out among the masses of mankind where faith and hope are needed. As someone puts it: “Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of faith. “
For comments, write me at henrytacio@gmail.com
