Be an “I can” person

Consider these examples of resistance to inventions that we now consider commonplace and enjoy every day: in Germany, “experts” said that if trains went as fast as fifteen to twenty miles an hour – considered a frightful speed – blood would spurt from the travellers’ noses and passengers would suffocate when going through tunnels. In America, experts said the introduction of the railroad would require the building of many insane asylums, since people would be driven mad with terror at the sight of the locomotives. When the idea of iron ships was first proposed, experts insisted that they would not float, that it would be difficult to preserve the iron bottom from rust, and that iron would play havoc with compass readings. In 1797, when the first cast-iron plow was invented, farmers in New Jersey rejected it, saying the cast iron would poison the ground and stimulate the growth of weeds. When the YMCA in New York welcomed the invention of the typewriter and announced typing lessons for women, protests erupted on the grounds that the female constitution would break down under the strain. Now consider these statements, each of which is a product of a negative mindset: (1) “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible” (Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, 1895). (2) “Man will never tap the power of the atom” (Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize winner in physics, 1923). (3) “Everything that can be invented has been invented” (Charles H. Duell, U.S. Patent Office Director, 1899). If you want to accomplish great things and be used by God, become an “I can” person.