Fleas In a Jar

“Fleas In a Jar”

If You Believe You Can, Then You Can!

    We hear a lot today about accomplishments and limitations and impossibilities, but here’s the question, “Can we actually limit ourselves by what we think?”

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had a biology teacher. His name was Mr. Watson. He was a wacky sort of guy, but he always had something interesting to teach us. Well, one day, as we came into his classroom, there he was holding a big jar, a pickle jar, full of fleas. As he directed us to the activity inside the jar. We noticed that the fleas were jumping, jumping like crazy to get out of that jar, but each time they jumped, they would hit their little heads on the jar lid and crash back down. Well, this went on for one full week. Each day we would come into our class, and he would show us that jar full of fleas jumping, jumping as high as they could, hitting their head on the lid of that jar and crashing back down.

Then on that fifth day, Mr. Watson did something that seemed absolutely crazy. As we all watched, he unscrewed the lid off that jar.

    “Oh no, get back. All the fleas are gonna jump out. They’re gonna get out and get on us!”

    But as we watched, something amazing happened. The fleas were jumping all right, but not one jumped out. Why? Amazingly, the fleas had decided in just one short week – they had learned in just five days that they could still jump all right, but that they could not jump higher than the lid of that pickle jar. Amazing.

And speaking of limitations and impossibilities, listen to this story.

Until May 6th, 1954, no human being had ever run the mile in less than four minutes. It was just impossible. But on that May 6th, 1954, long distance runner Roger Banister did the seemingly impossible. He broke the four-minute mile.

So then what happened? Believe it or not, that next year, 37 runners broke the four-minute mile. The following year, 300 runners finished in under four minutes, and today in the New York Fifth Avenue mile run, even the runner who finishes last usually runs the mile in less than four minutes. What an amazing testimony of just how limited thinking can make possible tasks seem very impossible.

Just what was Mr. Watson trying to teach us there in that high school class? Not to let our own thinking limit just how high we could jump, how far we could go, how much we could accomplish. And I never forgot the lesson.

And speaking of lessons learned, have you noticed that as you think back in our country and in your life, have you noticed how different things are becoming, how many of the great, great things of the past are just floating away.

Let us never stop praying for God to be the true father of our nation.

I am a story teller. Since 1998, I have been telling the true stories of our nation and those Americans gone before us.  To say the least, these stories have been well received by Americans, both young and old.  So, here’s where the stories have taken me.  In 1998, I was broadcasting my stories on just one radio station in Washington State.  Today, from Texas 15 years later, these programs are now broadcast through a syndicated radio network to over 400 radio stations all across America, with literally millions of listeners.