Sometimes little things cross our paths and make an impression on us. Little things that cause us to think about other things that have greater significance.

As I left the house one day this week I saw a turtle making his way along the path. Thinking that I was doing a good turn, I lifted the little fella up and placed him gently on the grass.

A few minutes later I returned to the house to get something and looked to see where the turtle was. To my surprise he was about a hundred yards away and moving right along towards his eventual destination.

I watched him for a while as he slowly but consistently went on his way and it was then that the personal significance of what I was seeing started to capture my imagination.

My thoughts drifted to how, like that turtle, the journey that we are on has more to do with slow steady progression than in spasmodic, inconsistent sprints that are no more than a series of stops and starts that ultimately get us nowhere.

The writer of Hebrews exhorts us to “Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us”( Heb 12:1).

In the preceding chapter of Hebrews we are told that Moses “Persevered because he saw Him who is invisible” (Hebrews11:27).

That was some journey but Moses kept his eyes on the one who knew the way through the wilderness and day by day kept moving toward the goal.

I believe that as we look back on our Christian walk, we will see that the progress that we have made over the years has been more akin to the steady walk of the turtle than the frantic dash of the hare.

There is always the temptation to want to get things done as quickly as possible and to desire growth to take place without growing pains. In my experience that just doesn’t happen and frankly I’m glad, because if it did we would learn nothing and what is produced in us would not be lasting or valuable.

We can learn so much by the little things that cross our path. In fact I believe the Lord puts them there to teach us those simple truths that are so essential to our growth.

Perseverance is one of the fundamentals of the Christian life and I’m grateful for meeting my slow little friend. By observing his perseverance, I was reminded of the importance of this quality in my own life..