Hidden Potential
Theme of the Week: Nice Recovery!
Robert Lewis
Thursday, August 7, 2003
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Key Bible Verse: "There is still the youngest," Jesse replied. "But he's out in the fields watching the sheep" (1 Samuel 16:11). Bonus Reading:1 Samuel 16:1-13
General Ulysses S. Grant, whose victories at Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and elsewhere sealed the conflict for the Union, is considered one of the heroes of the War between the States. But Grant's success is even more remarkable when you consider his background.
Prior to the war, Ulysses Grant was a confirmed failure. He had failed as a farmer, a peddler of firewood, and as the proprietor of a leather store in Galena, Illinois. At one point, he was so broke that he pawned his gold watch—a family heirloom—for $22.
But deep in his heart, Ulysses Grant knew he could succeed. William McFeely, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, makes this powerful observation: "[Grant] had, all along, ideas and a [good] sense of himself that he could make no one notice." No matter how hard Grant tried, no one seemed to sense his potential.
Many sons today are just like Ulysses Grant. They have a sense of themselves, a premonition that they were created for something significant, if only someone would notice them! Someone like a father.
—Robert Lewis in Raising a Modern-Day Knight
My Response: I've been too close to ____ to recognize his/her potential. I'll put it into words.
Thought to Apply: Life's real failure is when you do not realize how close you were to success when you gave up.
—source unknown
Adapted from Raising a Modern-Day Knight (Tyndale, 1997) by permission.
Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.
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Lord, don't allow failure to paralyze me. Let me hang on to You until I experience Your deliverance.
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