Trusting God: of Cats and Men
It’s a beautiful evening to watch the rain. From my vantage point on the screened-in porch, I see heady coneflowers drunk with the falling water, breathe in the clean earthiness coming from the wood...and watch about sixteen miserable cats try to find shelter from the wet.
I tried to persuade them to join me on the porch, but cats, like people, can be very, very stubborn. Of the eighteen creatures who call this corner of the woods their home, only two braved my humanity to slide past the squeaky door and join me on the couch—and only one of them a cat! Reggie is a tiny boar of a dog, and Rat Cat is the most pitifully skinny kitty you’ve ever seen. They’re different in most ways but similar in one: both are desperate for food and affection. Of all the hungry and damp animals out in this rain, Rat Cat and Reggie are the only ones who will join me in the warmth of the porch.
I can’t understand why! I’ve spoken softly to the frightened ones, sternly to the mean ones, fed them, and held out my hands to those who wanted to sniff. Yet they refuse to come in and sleep on the soft cushion. They’ll accept food and the sparse shelter of a wasp-infested gazebo, but nothing more.
I think I feel a little like Jesus must have felt as he travelled toward the city that he had called home before becoming a man. In that passage, Jesus cast his thought to the place he loved and cried,
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Luke 13:31)
Jerusalem accepted Jesus’ miracles the way a starving dog will accept scraps but growl at the hands that set them out. Jesus went to Jerusalem with gifts he was longing to give, but the people there loathed Him and demanded His execution. What happiness and laughter and peace Jerusalem missed out on, all because they were too suspicious to trust the hands that brought it!
As I reflect on that passage and look outside the felines who are refusing to take shelter with me, memories of my own lack of trust sprinkle down as gently and persistently as the rain.
I have frequently come home after a weary day and ignored Christ beckoning me to exchange my burden for one that is easier to carry. I can’t tell you how often I’ve turned to morphine in the form of a smartphone, numbing my thoughts instead of giving them to God. Sometimes, even at my loneliest, I’ve turned down an opportunity to speak with a fellow human because I think it will make me more tired.
In Psalm 36 David sings,
“How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life and in your light do we see light.”
Let’s learn a lesson from Jerusalem and the dozen or so cats out in the cold. Our Father has a screened-in porch full of cushions and flowers and dry blankets. Why should we stay pacified with the damp shelter of our own sufficiency?
May we sing with our brother David of God’s abundant dining room table and boundless pitchers of spring water; we are welcome there, if we will only come in.