The Rabbit

There is nothing which so certifies the genuineness of a man's faith as his patience and his patient endurance, his keeping on steadily in spite of everything.  Martyn Lloyd-Jones

For two days in a row I parked next to a rabbit.  After the second day I was curious because this rabbit didn’t act like your usual rabbit.  He didn’t run, he just sat and stared. As I walked away from my car I was no more than 10ft away from him and he never moved.  I spoke to him and he didn't even flinch.  I was beginning to think he was stuffed or dead. 

I decided to Google rabbits to see what I don’t know about them. Here is what I found.  Rabbits are prey animals so they are constantly aware of their surroundings.  If confronted by a potential threat, they will freeze and then thump the ground to warn other rabbits of the danger.  They have a wide field of vision and most of the time they use overhead scanning to watch for danger.  Here is another thing I didn’t know.  Since rabbits are prey animals they will often sleep with their eyes open so that sudden movements will wake them and make them aware of danger.  Since it was 6:00am, I guess my rabbit was sleeping with his eyes open because he never moved.

I started thinking about how this could be applied to my life and God.  God created this creature so there is a lot I can learn from the rabbit.  Several years ago at church our pastor and associate pastor did a sermon so our senior pastor dressed up as a tortoise and our associate pastor dressed as a hare.  They filmed them in a neighborhood where the hare was running in his hare costume down the street ears flopping as he passed our senior pastor in the tortoise costume plodding along. The hare eventually got tired and sat down and took a nap.  The tortoise passed the hare and won the race.  The sermon was about speed and endurance.  If we are to run the race of life to eternity, we will need endurance.  Just because we have speed doesn’t mean we will win the race.  The tortoise won the race because he had endurance.

Ecclesiastes 9:11
I have seen something else under the sun: the race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

Many of us have had experiences that confirm the truth of this verse. All our carefully laid plans have fallen apart; all our dreams that we had what it took to succeed in some particular area of life crumbled, and we could not understand why. We had to learn, as this text says, the race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong.  

Ecclesiastes 9:12

Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.

It is not always the strong, the mighty, the able, and the gifted that win. The battle is not always to the strong, and this principle rings true even for the awards and prizes of the world. The Nobel Prize was given to a little woman in India, Mother Teresa, who ministered fully to the needs of the poor around her.

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, when I watched this rabbit I thought of how defenseless he is compared to other animals.  We are just as defenseless without You. I want to run the race with endurance with my focus on You.  You give me strength to overcome the obstacles of life.  There will be battles in this life and I will cling to You.

  

Scripture:  Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.  For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:

“For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.” Hebrews 10:35-38