Heartbreaking to see millions of people worldwide being uprooted from their homes during this week filled with natural disasters. 🌊🌪 🙏 for them.😔😘
So, for my Sunday message, when I saw this turtle carrying a suitcase, it brought to my mind the importance of perseverance and focus. Sometimes when life gets tough (and it always does), we tend to give up. 😟 Not just on ourselves, but even on others. Especially, when we see slow progress. In reality though, it is usually our own slowness to change and lack of patience that hold us back from opening up new paths.
It was Abraham Lincoln who said, “I’m a slow walker but I never walk back.” In other words, as we face hurdles, just keep plugging away because slow, steady progress is better than fast, daily excuses... right?
God’s ultimate purpose for us in life is our eternal progression. This will eventually lead to our exaltation. However, we can’t just speed up this pace to our liking. It takes time... it takes thought... it takes effort... line upon line:
“For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” (Isaiah 28:10 )
The principle of perfecting ourselves by lifting others, taking care of those in need and loving our neighbors... when we embracing any of these principles they begin changing US and our lives for the BETTER. ☺️♥️
“And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you.” (1 Thessalonians 3:12)
I loved how Franklin D. Roosevelt clarifies this concept:
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
Progress comes from facing trials head-on. I believe trials in life can keep us learning and help us focus on serving and loving one another. During a chat with Donny Thursday, I talked to him about children and how, when we, as parents, try to fix their problems for them, we can enable them negatively. We don’t want to see our kids hurt but by fixing things for them, it can end up doing them more harm than good. We take away their struggles and deny them their experience to learn, to grow and how to deal with life. Donny agreed on how important it is for us, especially as parents, to teach the younger generation how to graciously handle and recover from failures. We have a responsibility to show them how to get back up after a stumble or after taking a hard fall. They need to figure out how to shake off the dust, pick themselves back up and keep moving forward—this is life. It’s a SKILL we all need to develop in order to reach new heights, open new doors and create fresh opportunities.
There is no shame in failure. My Mom would say to us, “The only people who fail are those who fail to try.” I might add, ’The only people who fail are those who fail to get themselves back up to try, try and try again!’ With all the trials, challenges, disasters and storms that come flying our way, we all know that we can’t give up in the middle of a full-blown storm or else, we may end up getting washed away. No one can better testify to this fact than Job. Job, as you may recall, faced a series of very difficult problems that came one after another. The hits just kept on coming and he is proof positive that when it rains, it pours—yet, he continually managed to stay above water! His patience and faith in the Lord were tried to the limits but through it all, he never cursed God. He maintained his integrity and Job grew in patience, love and strength. I love his example.♥️
We learn from his experience is that it is not how far we fall, but rather how high we keep bouncing back up that counts, and that patience really IS a virtue. Good things do come to those who wait.... patiently!
We may all be operating on different timelines, but eventually, we all do reach our goal(s) or our final destination. 😊🙏 Like the turtle slogan says, “Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.” Not everyone can break out of their shell so quickly. Never give up… Keep loving each other… Keep pressing forward... and Keep Christ’s love in our hearts. As the scriptures say, Christ is our perfect brightness of hope. After all, speed matters little but moving forward matters most. Yep Yep🐰🐢
Let’s come out of our 🐚 on this #Happy #Sunday and shell-e-brate the progress we ARE making! No matter how fast or slow... progress is progress. 🤣💋
#HisDay #eternalprogression #doityourway #slowbutsteady #progressisgood