The Reluctant Tadpole

This is Tad. He lives at our house and has since we did our "Life Cycles" unit in Science in August. Our cats enjoy him very much! (Thank goodness the tub he's in has a lid!)

Tad is a reluctant tadpole. He will eventually go through a metamorphosis and become a leopard frog. According to the directions that came with him, it should take 12-15 weeks for a complete metamorphosis...

Count that out... He's been here since August...

Tad is apparently a bit reluctant to go on to the next stage of development. His back legs are minute. He has a bulge on one side for his supposedly-developing front legs, but not on the other. His back legs have not grown at all.

I started feeding him fresh salad in addition to his commercial tadpole food (Yes, there is such a thing!). I figured out a way to warm up his water a bit, hoping that he would eat more and develop. And he IS eating more; he loves the lettuce leaves! He's more active, too.

But he's not developing into a frog.

I was joking about the tadpole being reluctant to mature when I realized that at times I've been reluctant to mature, especially as a Christian. Maybe  you have, too?

When we choose to skip reading our Bible daily, but we have time for Facebook, Twitter, etc, we are choosing not to mature as Christians.

When we attend church passively, attention drifting through the service, we are choosing not to mature as Christians.

It takes intention to mature, at least for us. I'm not sure that Tad needs to want to turn into a frog...

But for us, we have to make choices that lead the direction we want to go. We have to choose to attend Bible Study, even if there's a big game on. We have to intentionally set aside time to pray. We have to consider the consequences of a flippant remark on Facebook.

I don't want to be a reluctant tadpole Christian. Do you?