The BBC always does nature documentaries so well and the current series called ‘Dynasties’, lives up to the high standards that they always set. Last Sunday week its programme featured penguins living in the Antarctica. The film crew were there for nearly a year, sometimes filming during snow storms and blizzards. After one of these snow storms, they found that a group of about a hundred penguins had fallen into an ice bowl about half the size of a football pitch. Every time the penguins tried to climb up and out of the ice bowl they would slide back down to the bottom. They were doomed to die with no escape.

Normally film crews do not intervene with nature when filming, but on this occasion they felt they had to do something. So over a day they built steps into the side of the ice bowl, all the way up to the top, to give the penguins a chance to get out. Sure enough when they had finished, the penguins almost instinctively knew this was their chance. Taking it one step at a time they slowly were able to climb out of the ice bowl to safety.

This has meaning for us too. Life can often be like the ice bowl and we keep slipping back to where we started. We think we are making progress and that things are going ok. Suddenly we slide back down again. Life has to be taken one step at a time. It is the only way forward. Far too often we take on too much and we are always catching up.

Taking it one step at a time has its roots in our Gospel stories too. Jesus on so many occasions was the one who held his hand out to help someone, to heal them, to give them a second chance, to get their life back on track, to be themselves again and to restart their lives again. In Mark 6:50 we have those beautiful words of Jesus: “Courage. It is I, Do not be afraid”. We too need courage as we take it one step at a time. We do it in the context of today. It is the only day that matters.


Thought For The Week is update each Monday