Sermon Central
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Edison: Complete Forgiveness
Contributed by Jim Kane on Apr 26, 2010 (message contributor)
EDISON: COMPLETE FORGIVENESS
When Thomas Edison and his staff were developing the incandescent light bulb, according to Ken Sande, it took hundreds of hours to manufacture a single bulb. One day, after finishing a bulb, notes Sande, Edison handed it to a young errand boy and asked him to take it upstairs to the testing room. As the boy turned and started up the stairs, he stumbled and fell, and the bulb shattered on the steps.
Instead of rebuking the boy, Edison reassured him and then turned to his staff and told them to start working on another bulb. When it was completed several days later, Edison demonstrated the reality of his forgiveness in the most powerful way possible. He walked over to the same boy, handed him the bulb, and said, "Please take this up to the testing room."
Sande then comments: "Imagine how that boy must have felt. I can imagine that he was a nervous wreck. And I do not doubt that Edison was also a nervous wreck."
(Source: Dr. Reed Lessing. © 2010 by Creative Communications for the Parish. creativecommunications.com.)
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