As a youngster, Noah Semonoff was easily discouraged.
One evening, his father handed him a thin board and a penknife. He told Noah to scratch a line across the width of the board. Noah scratched a light line, and his father put the board away. Each night, his father handed him the board. Each night Noah scratched the knife blade lightly across the same line. In a few weeks, that line was a deep groove. One night, with a final light stroke, the board fell in two.
This is Howard Butt Jr., of Laity Lodge. Young Noah never forgot his father’s lesson in diligence: the secret to success often rides on whether or not we keep at it—in the high calling of our daily work.
All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.
Proverbs 14:23
