Refusals

A famous scientist tells how that, in the course of his experiments in the mountains, he used to be lowered over a precipice. He would step into the basket, and the men would lower him for his work; but whenever they lowered him, they would always test his weight to see if they could lift him again. One day they let him down farther and farther than ever before, until all the rope at their command was exhausted. When his day’s work was done, he would give the signal, and they would draw him up. But on this night, when they took hold of the rope to lift him, they could not do so. They tugged and pulled and strained, but they could not manage it, and he had to wait until they got additional men to pull him up, and the scientist says that the reason they could not lift him was because they failed to take into consideration the length and weight of the rope. I know why a fifty-year-old man has a hard time to surrender. It is because he must always lift against his past refusals. You say, “No,” and your heart is hardened; you say, “No,” and your will becomes stubborn, and if you are finally lost, the responsibility is not with God.
—J. Wilbur Chapman