By Joseph Tanchi
Remember the story of the tortoise (or turtle) and the hare? As children, we're all told this story and taught to be consistent, diligent and just keep at it (whatever ‘it' is that your parents or teachers were trying to get you to do). We're taught about hard work, avoiding laziness, finishing a job and seeing things through to completion before we stop and rest.
I always found this story amusing because in spite of the ending, I never really thought of the turtle as ‘better' than the hare. He was just more consistent that one time. I recall, as a child, always thinking to myself ‘That'll never happen again. That turtle just got lucky this one time.' Call me a cynic but I still believe its true. The hare made a mistake, and if he learns from it, any other race they'll have, he'll smoke that turtle.
However, the story of that slow, steady turtle does teach us all those things I just mentioned, especially when we apply it to our spiritual lives. He teaches us about steady, continuous growth. You see, for many of us, there's often no magical transformation or miraculous story in their spiritual walk. We were sinners, we were told of Christ's amazing grace and love, we were convicted by the Holy Spirit, we repented and accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and put our faith in Him. From there, we start to study the Bible, memorize & meditate on it, learn from it, apply it, and so on. We don't become a mature Christian overnight. Indeed, some people have amazing stories to tell, but most don't. We don't all have spiritual highs every day or week. But just because our Christian lives are 'normal' doesn't mean we're not experiencing true growth and transformation. We just have to keep working at it. We keep on going, just like that turtle.
Even the apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:12-14 "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." In his own life, he acknowledged that he wasn't there yet, and had to keep pressing onwards, straining towards the goal for which he had been called. In another well-known passage, the writer of Hebrews adds "…and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." and "Consider him (Christ)… so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." (Hebrews 12:1b, 3)
In his second letter, Peter says "…make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self control; and to self control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 1:5-8, emphasis added). What else can he mean other than that we are called to continue and persevere in continually growing and increasing in our Christ- likeness? We are instructed to increase in our faith, goodness, knowledge, and so on. We are called to increase in love. We don't stop midway, and take a break. We just keep going.
There will always be times of trials and testing, and even failure. But what do we do? We pick ourselves up, we start walking again, and we keep on "straining towards the goal for which we have been called."
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