I hope you remember the tortoise and the hare.
Pastor Kyle reminded us of this childhood story on Sunday – where the moral of the story is found in rejecting the arrogant posture of the hare and embracing the slow, steady, and consistent pace of the tortoise.
There is the tendency in all of us to want to rush progress, to hasten our spiritual maturity, to speed along ahead faster than we can run. But in stories like these we are reminded of just how harmful a prideful spirit can be, and about the losses that come our way by way of overestimating our abilities.
I’m sure I can say that most of us aren’t racing against creatures as cool as torities or being passed up by big eared bunnies – but most of us are speeding through life at rates that far outpace even the fastest hare. (The Guinness Book of World Records for fastest tortoise belongs to Bertie who clocked in at an average speed of 0.63 miles per hour, while the hare can run up to 45 mph!)
One downside of our hare-paced lives is that our children often receive less than what God intends for them. There is a rich blessing that can flow down to them from our believing hearts and our church family, the blessing of a sustained and steady witness to the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints – but that can’t be rushed.
And in the same way we can’t rush ahead in our own discipleship journey, we can’t hurry ahead of our kids and students either. The journey that the kids and students of our church find themselves on is unfolding before our eyes, in our homes, and right in front of us each and every Sunday.
One way for us to fight our hare-pinned tendencies is to slow down by commemorating and recognizing the moments of growth, change, and transition. This Sunday is a day for just that – it’s Promotion Sunday, where our school aged kids and students will move up a grade and into a new class. These may seem like seemingly insignificant changes – but they really do provide our church with another opportunity to thank God for those He has blessed us with, while recognizing the unique opportunity we have to love and equip them for life and godliness.
Promotion Sunday is a milestone and marker on the calendar for us to remember that changes and transitions matter. They provide us with small opportunities to pause and slow down, to look and see what is in front of us.
The community and ministry of our church, as we were encouraged on Sunday, needs to move further into the tortoise category—where we embrace the humble, slow, and steady nature of discipleship and life together in Christ. We are in this race together, and we will fare much better when we bring these next generations along with us—one step at a time and over the long haul of life.
Here are some ways we can do just that this weekend:
We hope to see you here or there!
With you in Christ,
Jonathan Gentry
