“The Hare and the Tortoise!”

There is a great story called “The Hare and the Tortoise!” It goes something like this. One day the Hare challenged the Tortoise to a race. The Hare was the fastest animal in the wood where all the animals lived. The Tortoise was the slowest. A race course was chosen that would take the two animals from one side of the wood to the other. All the animals gathered at the starting line including a very confident Hare and a not so confident Tortoise. The race starter said, “Go!” The Hare raced off as fast as he could and soon left the slow moving Tortoise a long way behind. After some time, the Hare came to the last part of the race course. He could see the finishing line a few hundred metres away. But the Hare wasn’t too worried about finishing just yet. He thought that he would lay under the shade of a cool tree and wait for the slow Tortoise to catch up. Then, he would race ahead and win the race. As the Hare lay in the shade he fell asleep.

Sometime later, the Tortoise came past the place where the Hare was asleep. The Tortoise waved at the sleeping Hare as he continued slowly but surely to the finishing line. The Hare eventually woke up and to his horror saw that the slow moving Tortoise was only a couple of meters from crossing the finishing line. The Hare ran as fast as he could towards the finishing line, but it was too late. The Tortoise had won the race.

The moral of this story is: SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE!

The Bible speaks a lot about how we are running the race of life. Like the Tortoise, the Bible encourages all God’s people to keep on running, to keep on striving to the finish line.

The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:24: Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it.

To run in the race of life means that all we do, say or think is motivated by the fact that we have Jesus living in our hearts and lives. Each day, each week, each month, each year we keep on running as children of God looking forward to the day when we will finish the race and guess who will be there at the finishing line to welcome us? JESUS HIMSELF!

Pastor Milton