Sermon Central
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How To Train An ...
Contributed by Eric Ferguson on May 16, 2008 (message contributor)
How To Train An Elephant
Have you ever wondered how to train an elephant?
The first step is making it believe it can’t run away.
Get your elephant—preferably a baby one—and tie it to a strong steel stake in the ground, like you would tie a horse to a hitching post.
The baby elephant will try to break free, but it won’t have the strength to do so.
Eventually, the little elephant will give up and stop trying to escape from the rope and the stake that limit its range.
Once the young elephant has learned that it cannot pull the stake from the ground, you can replace the strong stake with a smaller wooden one, even though it wouldn’t have enough strength to hold the elephant.
An elephant trained in its babyhood to believe that the stake is strong and won’t budge won’t attempt to break loose and run away—even after it has grown strong enough to easily yank almost any stake out of the ground.
We are also best trained in our youth by a strong stake in the ground that teaches us where the limits are, by a certainty about the difference between right and wrong.
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