McMinnville Seventh-day Adventist Church

Pastor's Corner - October 2012

In Character Forged From Conflict, Gary Preston writes: “Back when the telegraph was the fastest means of longdistance communication, there was a story perhaps apocryphal, about a young man who applied for a job as a Morse Code operator. Answering an ad in the newspaper, he went to the address that was listed. When he arrived, he entered a large noisy office. In the background a telegraph clacked away. A sign on the receptionist’s counter instructed applicants to fill out a form and wait until they were summoned to enter the inner office.

The young man completed his form and sat down with seven other waiting applicants. After a few minutes he stood up, crossed the room to the door of the inner office, and walked right in. Naturally the other applicants perked up, wondering what was going on. Why had this man been so bold? They muttered among themselves that they hadn’t heard any summons. They took more than a little satisfaction in assuming the young man who went into the office would be reprimanded for his presumption and summarily disqualified for the job.

Within a few minutes he emerged from the office escorted by the interviewer who announced to the other applicants, “Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming, but the job has been filled by this man.”

The other applicants began grumbling to each other, and one spoke up, “Wait a minute! I don’t understand. He was the last one to come in, and we never even got a chance to be interviewed. Yet he got the job. That’s not fair!”

The employer responded, “All the time you have been sitting here, the telegraph has been ticking out a message in Morse code: ‘If you understand this message, come right in, the job is yours.’ None of you heard it or understood it. This young man did. So the job is his.”

Let each of us always be tuned in to the voice of the Savior, which invites us to be His friends in this life, and also for Eternity. A day is coming when we will hear these words, “Well done, . . . you have been faithful! Enter into the joy of your Lord.”