What Did He See?

The following story has some truth in it:

He came home after school with a paper for his mother.  He told her, “My teacher gave this paper to me and told me to only give it to my mother.”  His mother’s eyes were tearful as she read the letter out loud to her child: 

“Your son is a genius.  This school is too small for him and doesn’t have enough good teachers for training him.  Please teach him yourself.”

Many, many years later, when he was a man, the boy’s mother died.  He was now one of the greatest inventors of the century.  One day he was looking through old family things. Suddenly he saw a folded paper in the corner of a drawer in a desk.  He took it and opened it.  On the paper was written:

“Your son is addled [mentally ill].  We won’t let him come to school any more.”

Thomas Edison cried for hours and then he wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was an addled child that, by a hero mother, became the genius of the century.”

According to the TruthOrFiction website, here is the true account of Edison’s childhood experience as stated by the Foundation for Economic Education:

“In 1854, G. B. Engle belittled one of his students, seven-year-old Thomas Alva Edison, as “addled.”  This outraged the youngster, and he stormed out of the Port Huron, Michigan school, the first formal school he had ever attended.  His mother, Nancy Edison, brought him back the next day to discuss the situation with Engle, but she became angry at his rigid ways.  Everything was forced on the kids.  She withdrew her son from the school where he had been for only three months and resolved to educate him at home.”

Ray Hawk recently wrote: “After reading this story I wondered what that teacher saw as he looked at the Edison boy?  He certainly didn’t see a great inventor!  Edison was dyslexic, [a condition] which that teacher, nor anyone else at that time, knew how to treat.  Therefore he thought Edison was ‘addled.’”

Personalize this.  “What does God see in me?”  The Bible says that God loves me.  Why?  What does He see in me?

When God looks at you (and me), He sees a sinner (Romans 3:23).  He also sees a sinner that He wants to save (1 Timothy 2:4).  When He looks at you (and me), He sees a sinner for whom He gave His Son to save him (“her”) from his (“her”) sins (John 3:16).

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Because of His great love for us, God gave Jesus to die on the cross for our sins so that we might have forgiveness, be added to His family, and receive the gift of eternal life (Ephesians 1:7; Galatians 3:26-27; Romans 6:23).

God will save YOU if you will place your faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from sin in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and be baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).

When God sees YOU, He sees a sinner that He wants to save.

Won’t YOU accept His offer on His terms?                                                                    

– David A. Sargent

* From “My Thoughts” for 11/5/15 by Ray Hawk and www.truthorfiction.com

David A. Sargent, Minister