Challenging Our Circumstances
WILLINGNESS to accept things as they are is a fatal stumbling-block in life. No man ever succeeded in business who let his business be regulated or limited by conditions as they were. No pastor ever built up a church by yielding to the conditions that confronted him. No mother ever blessed a home by inertly bowing before what may have looked like the inevitable. The president of a business corporation was looking for a man to fill a responsible position. One was named to him who had had some experience in the desired field. “No,” was the president’s comment; “I did not like his willingness to take things as they were when he was representing our interests at ——, instead of jumping in and making things different.” And so an opportunity passed that young man by, because he had supinely let circumstances pass him by unchallenged. Very different was the spirit of that railroad man’s keen comment that so influenced the life of young Henry Clay Trumbull: “Nothing but omnipotence can stand in the way of a determined man.” And circumstances are never omnipotent.—Sunday School Times.