Horton Hatches The Egg Series

Horton Hatches the Egg

(Read from beginning to page with animal friends running away)

Yep this is the same Horton who Heard a Who, and this is where we first hear his philosophy “I meant what I said and I said what I meant, an elephant is faithful one hundred percent.”

Is the book familiar to anyone? This was one of Seuss’s first books, it was published for the first time in 1940, fourteen years before the sequel, and it was one of the books that my parents read to me when I was little. In the part that I read this morning you were introduced to the two main character’s Horton the Elephant and Mayzie the bird. Now if we were to continue to read the story we would discover how Horton was captured by hunters and that he and the tree, and the nest and the egg were sold to a circus, where people paid to see an elephant sitting in a tree. And it is when the circus stops in Palm Beach that Mayzie re-enters the story. She seems mildly amused that Horton is still sitting on the silly egg until the egg begins to hatch and then we pick up the story again. (Read from “But at that very instant, the egg burst apart” to End of the book)

And there are really two lessons that we discover in the book. From Mayzie we learn the cost of quitting while from Horton we discover the reward of persistence. But really, most of us know that already. We have lived our lives long enough to have discovered the reality that we won’t accomplish a lot in this life if we quit too soon. We know that, but many of us still quit when we should keep working at whatever it is we are working at. We quit our efforts to improve ourselves, we quit relationships, we quit our jobs. And the reasons sometimes seem valid, we are tired, we aren’t seeing the benefits soon enough, we see a better opportunity, we are criticized or we just don’t want to do it anymore.

The problem is that in many cases when you quit it doesn’t just mean you don’t continue to go forward often times you go backwards. So, if you’ve been losing weight and you quit your weight loss program too often you don’t just stay at that point you actually gain back the weight you’ve already lost. When you stop exercising you don’t plateau you fall back, when you quit learning your mind begins to atrophy, when you quit a relationship you have to start all over building trust, when you quit a job you lose your seniority.

And I realize that sometimes there are good reasons for quitting but often times the reason are rooted in the here and now and aren’t focused on the long term. And that is why Paul warns the early believers about the dangers of quitting. Let’s go back to the scripture that was read earlier, we are told in Galatians 6:9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.

In Galatians 6:8 Paul talks about those who live to please the Spirit, that’s us, Christians. And he tells us that we will be rewarded for the good we have done, but then he adds, if,if,if,if,if,if,if,if,if we do not give up.

One of the methods we use to prove a mathematical equation is by induction, which is by trying the converse of the equation. That is to say that a+b=c but only when c-b=a. Now if you are like me you say “But letters aren’t math, numbers are math, letters are spelling.” So let’s regress and say that 2+3=6 but only if 6-3=2. Which it doesn’t.

Now I have said all of that to say this, we will be rewarded if we do not give up, so if we give up we will not be rewarded. In other words don’t quit. Falling down is not fatal, staying down is.

Don’t let your defeats defeat you; realize that no problem will last forever. Every mountain has a top, every hill has a summit, every tunnel has an end and every night has a dawn.

I’m sure that every one of us could think of some reasons why we should chuck everything and give up whatever it is that we are doing. Don’t tell me why you can’t go on, don’t tell me why you have to quit. People have told me why they were quitting as a spouse, why they were quitting as a parent, why they were quitting their job or why they were quitting school. And they had pretty good reasons and do you know what? I don’t want to hear, because I know that you’ll have a good reason, but good reasons aren’t what God is looking for.