Sermon Central
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I Give Up!
Contributed by Sermon Central on Dec 31, 2022 (message contributor)
Many years ago, executives of the Time-Life publishing organization discovered that the company’s profit margin had shrunk to an alarmingly low level. To cut costs, they decided to eliminate hundreds of works to be replaced with machines.
The name of each subscriber was put on a separate little plate and run through the vast machine. Whenever a subscriber was six weeks away from an expired account, an envelope for renewal would be mailed without a single human hand touching the operation. The system worked flawlessly for a while, until that fateful, hot, humid, sticky day in New York City when one of the nameplates stuck in the machine. A few days later a lone sheepherder in Montana received 12,634 tear-jerking letters asking him to subscribe to Life magazine.
The sheepherder, who hadn’t received a letter in years, took his knife, carefully slit open one of the mailbags, and began reading his mail. Three weeks later, red-eyed, weary, and up to his hips in 12,634 opened pieces of mail, he made out a check for $6.00, filled out a subscription coupon, and sent it to the President of Time-Life personally, with the following note: “I give up!”
(Taken from an illustration by Richard Jones, entitled “Many Years Ago, Executives Of The Time-Life ...”, on 11/1/2000, https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon-illustrations/1026/love-by-richard-jones)
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