The Tortoise & the Hare
One day a hare saw a tortoise walking slowly along and began to laugh and mock him. The hare challenged the tortoise to a race and the tortoise accepted. They agreed on a route and started off the race. The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he thought he'd sit under a tree for some time and relax before continuing the race.
He sat under the tree and soon fell asleep. The tortoise, plodding on, overtook him and finished the race. The hare woke up and realized that he had lost the race.
The moral, stated at the end of the fable, is, "Slow and steady wins the race."
Dear Friends,
We who are serving Jesus through Sanctuary Ministries just calculated how many people we are impacting with the gospel of life & eternity & we are amazed. In five days of ministry (sadly, there is still one day, Sunday, that we have no Christians to witness) , we engage over 100 aborting women & men (including clinic workers & abortionists) every week at Orlando Women's Center. That means we reach 430 people a month, which means that we minister to over 5160 abortion-bound neighbors a year!!! (And we are not counting all of the infants in the womb who arrive to the clinic under the love & pleading of the gospel of Jesus Christ!) Our humble missionary labor of love reminds me of the old story of the tortoise & the hare. (You can see a cute extended version here:
http://childhoodreading.com/Arthur_Rackham/Tortoise_and_the_Hare.html)
We haven't been ministering five days a week the entire time since Pendergraft opened this particular death mill in 1996 (we started out there providing a ministry of presence two days a week) but we have been faithfully sharing the gospel of life & eternity slow & steady every week, week after week, month after month, year after year, at Orlando Women's Center since the very day it opened. Our humble grassroots effort to educate, help & share the gospel with lost & dying neighbors at abortuaries themselves is undoubtedly having an impact on our community. While education, awareness & the gospel do not cause every heart to repent, some do & others become convicted & do not kill again. Sadly, for those who resist & supress the truth that God has been kind enough to provide in their conscience AND then in the prophetic witness of sidewalk counselors, their guilt is increased. By the grace & strength of Christ we see an aborting mom change her mind & a baby is saved approximately once every 7 hours of our ministry time. The more we are there, the more babies are saved!
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift ...
Ecclesiastes 9:11
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.
Psalm 20:&
God alone gives men & women success. It is a blessed honor to be faithful to the Savior's call to witness & intervene for the helpless imperiled orphans in Orlando. We who have been forgiven & granted repentance unto life want to share this gift with the lost. It is noblesse oblige, if you will. We who are RICH & WEALTHY with all spiritual riches in heaven have so much to offer. Shall we be stingy & keep this salvation to ourselves? Never! Shall we look the other way when we KNOW that the babies are being led to the slaughter & delivered into the toilet every week at Orlando Women's Center six days a week? Never! Would it be holy to pretend that Baby Rowan (http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=20319588461&oid=19535165889, www.22weeksthemovie.com) wasn't murdered in the shadow of a thousand steeples in our city? In being obedient to the Great Commission in faithful, regular, consistent witness of life & eternity to those who are perishing, we are successful in the eyes of the One who really counts. Jesus showed His disciples how to share the gospel with their neighbors. He sent them out to preach repentance of sin & faith in Him. Let us continue to do God's work, God's way & trust that God will accomplish what He has ordained biblical preaching to accomplish. Listen to brother Matthew Henry who says:
See the difference between worldly people and godly people, in their confidences. The children of this world trust in second causes, and think all is well if those do but smile upon them ... "But," say the Israelites, "we neither have chariots and horses to trust to nor do we want them, nor, if we had them, would we build our hopes of success upon that; but we will remember, and rely upon, the name of the Lord our God, upon the relation we stand in to Him as the Lord our God and the knowledge we have of Him by His name," ...
Those who make God and His name their praise, may make God and His name their trust.
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."
~ Jim Eliot
Let me ask you a question: What would you be willing to risk & do for Jesus Christ & your neighbor if you knew you couldn't fail? Even if all political efforts fail & we experience increasing persecution, we will continue to take our stand, with Jesus' gracious help & enabling power, to reach our abortion-bound neighbors for His glory & their good. Won't you join us & stay for the long haul? The battle belongs to the Lord & He will return in glorious triumph. You & I, if we genuine members of the fellowship of the redeemed, cannot fail.
Together for Life & Eternity,
Patte Smith
Sanctuary Ministries
www.sanctuaryministries.blogspot.com
http://www.cpforlife.org/id197.htm
Men's success seldom equals their expectations. We must use means, but not trust to them: if we succeed, we must give God the praise; if crossed, we must submit to His will. Those who put off the great concerns of their souls, are caught in Satan's net, which he baits with some worldly object, for which they reject or neglect the gospel, and go on in sin till they suddenly fall into destruction.
~ Matthew Henry
www.durarealidad.com
