Some of you are old enough to remember when Jackie Robinson broke into baseball. He was a tremendous player for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was also the first black man to don a major league uniform. Jackie Robinson once told of some excellent advice he received from Branch Rickey, former President of the Brooklyn Dodgers. He received this advice the same day Rickey asked him to take this historic step \u2014 knowing there could be trouble up ahead.<\/p>\n
Rickey said to him, \u201cYou know, Jackie, I was a small boy when I took my first train ride. On the same train was an old couple, also riding for the first time. We were going through the Rocky Mountains. The old man sitting by the window looked forward and said to his wife, \u2018Trouble ahead. Ma! We\u2019re high up over a precipice and we\u2019re gonna run right off.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cTo my boyish ears,\u201d said Rickey, \u201cthe noise of wheels repeated \u2018Trouble-ahead trouble ahead\u2026 \u2018 I never hear train wheels to this day but what I think of this. But our train course bent into a tunnel right after the old man spoke, and we came out on the other side of the mountain. That\u2019s the way it is with most trouble ahead in this world, Jackie \u2014 if we use the common sense and courage God gave us. But you\u2019ve got to study the hazards and build wisely\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cGod is with us in this, Jackie,\u201d Mr. Rickey said quietly. \u201cYou know your Bible. It\u2019s good, simple Christianity for us to face realities and to recognize what we\u2019re up against\u2026 We\u2019ve got to fight out our problems together with tact and common sense.\u201d(1)<\/p>\n
Branch Rickey gave Jackie Robinson some good advice. God is with us. Faith in His promises gives us confidence in our future. The light at the end of the tunnel is not an on-coming train. It is the light of God\u2019s glory.<\/p>\n
~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n
1. John Haggai, WINNING (New York: Inspirational Press, 1991).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some of you are old enough to remember when Jackie Robinson broke into baseball. He was a tremendous player for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was also the first black man to don a major league uniform. Jackie Robinson once told of some excellent advice he received from Branch Rickey, former President of the Brooklyn Dodgers. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1371,1373,5,3001,200,3003,3002,131],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5609"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}