Pastor David and I love to go to the Zoo.  But I can only remember one time that we went to the cage of the sloth.  The sloth, you see, is a slow, lumbering beast that has no special marks or vivid colors.  One sloth looks pretty much like the next, and none of them are much to look at. A sloth lives most of its life hanging upside down.  When it occasionally feels the need to descend to the ground, its movements are very slow.  And what you probably didn't know is that the Sloth breeds procrastination.  The sloth constantly robs life of any sense of urgency as it whispers in your ear and mine:  there's no hurry; no hurry at all. 

    I read about a man who went back to the house where he had grown up.  He hadn't been there for twenty years.  He knocked on the door, and when the owner answered, the man said: "This is a sentiment trip for me.  Could I go through the house?"  The house had a huge attic where he had spent so much time as a kid.  In the attic he found and old jacket of his and put it on.  He reached into the pocket and pulled out a stub --  a receipt from a shoe repair shop.  He remembered that he had taken a pair of shoes to the shoe shop twenty  years earlier, and in the midst of the move, never picked them up.  On a whim, he went to the shoe shop, took out the receipt and handed it to the guy behind the counter and asked, "Are my shoes ready?"  The guy says, "hang on a second."  He goes back to the workroom, and comes back out and says, "Sorry, sir, we've been very busy.  They'll be ready a week from Thursday."

    A week from Thursday!  That is the mindset of a sloth when it sets in, in your life and mine.  It's always going to be "a week from Thursday." 

    During this coming Lenten Season, on Wednesday evenings, we will be focusing on the theme Now is the TIME.  We are encouraging everyone to look at the areas of their lives where they put off doing what they know they should be doing and say Now is the Time to stop procrastinating to move to a new, more effective way of living.  Take time this Lent to participate on the Wednesday's series as a community and support each other in not procrastinatng and in taking small steps towards a better life.

Grace and Peace,

Pastors David and Shirley