Many of us own more umbrellas than we possess. We have bought them, but they have a habit of disappearing. They are ours, but they cannot keep us dry when it rains. They are as though we did not own them.
An ornithologist discovered a new plant in Scotland which had never before been found in the British Isles, and botanists immediately traveled to see the plant in its natural habitat. The plants were growing on two little rocky crests, composed of a slightly richer rock; they were surrounded on all sides by miles of nothing but wilderness. An ornithologist discovered the plant because any normal botanist would have despaired of the whole mountain long before he came in sight of its one rewarding acre.
A college girl once said to me, "I have never trusted anyone in my life. How can I trust the Lord Jesus with all the problems of my daily life? Since it was Easter vacation, I asked her how she was going back to college. She said, "I am going to fly."
"Do you have your ticket?" I asked.
"No," she said, "I have to find out what time I can get a plane."
"How are you going to do that?" I inquired.
A farmer watched a bird building her nest in a heap of branches pruned from the apple tree beside the farmhouse. All day long the bird toiled; in the evening the farmer destroyed the work she had done - scattering the tiny twigs about and trampling them beneath his feet. The next day the bird, undaunted, began her building once again. Again at evening time her work was destroyed. Judged by the feeble standards of the bird, ignorant of all beyond the cycle of her instincts, the man was cruel and not to be called good.
A spring comes forth from the side of a hill - clear, cold, limpid, and containing a certain metal content from the earth. As the stream flows down through the countryside it becomes polluted. Each time man builds on its shores the stream becomes more foul. If it passes through a village or town it becomes undrinkable; if it passes through a city, it bears the germs of death for anyone who drinks of it. Yet there are traces of its original state for the chemical analysis still shows the presence of the original values. Even in its depraved state the stream still has its uses...
