Cat Fight At 4:30 a.m.
(This Coffee Stain is a blast from the past)
I’m not particularly attached to cats, but I don’t dislike them either.
I still have good memories of my Grandpa Porter’s cat, “Tom”, (he also had a dog name Churchill, so baptized because he hung out often at the church up the hill). We laughed hilariously at the antics of my daughter’s cat Betty.
So I wasn’t particularly happy to learn that someone was bumping off felines. I imagined a strange, lonely old man taking vengeance for his unfulfilled life on the neighborhood kitties.
Why would anyone want to kill a cat ?
The other night about 4:30, up on the clay-tiled roof of our house I heard, “Bump, bump, meeeeeooooowww!” I thought, “Stupid cat! What’s going on over there?” It sounded like the neighbor was remodeling his house in the middle of the night and had stepped on a sleeping cat in the dark.
My wife informed me later that it was nothing like that. According to her it was a little matter of a cat fight. Some of the roof tiles were loose and when one of the cats walked over them they slipped, hence, “bump, bump, meeeooowww!”
I still didn’t know who was killing cats, but suddenly I began to get an idea as to why!
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want to kill the things. I wanted to throw my old shoe at them and yell the strongest insults, permitted to a Christian (In love, of course).
“Stupid cat! Don’t you know it’s 4:30! Go home and sleep! I hope you meet a 20-pound mouse that’s a karate expert!” Or something of the sort.
I was a bit upset, but as I reflected, I realized that they were only doing what cats do. They patrol their territory and fight to protect it.
I don’t know how many rooftops this particular cat thinks he owns but he evidently believes he has the right to go anywhere in his territory. Any other cat that intrudes pays the price.
Maybe more Christians ought to be like him.
Christian Cat Fighters
You see God has given us a “territory.” Each one of us has a purpose for being on this planet. As God’s servants, we can be all that God has called us to be, or we can only do a tiny part of what He put us here for.
Joshua and Israel stood before a land that God had given them. Sin had corrupted the inhabitants and it was important for God’s people to take that land. Milk and honey flowed in this promised paradise, but it would take everything they had to conquer it, and make a holy nation from it.
Joshua knees must have knocked together a bit as he remembered those ugly giants he had seen in there. God addressed the leader of his people firmly:
“…Get going. Cross this Jordan River, you and all the people. Cross to the country I’m giving to the People of Israel. I’m giving you every square inch of the land you set you foot on–just as I promised Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon east to the Great River, the Euphrates River–all the Hittite country-and then west to the Great Sea. It’s all yours. All your life, no one will be able to hold out against you. In the same way I was with Moses, I’ll be with you. I won’t give up on you; I won’t leave you.” (Joshua 1:2-5, The Message).
Part Of the Promise
But it was hundreds of years before God’s people took all the land that God had given them. It’s so easy to settle for a part of the promise, or to do a part of what God called us to do.
Really it’s you and I who determine how fully we accomplish His plan in our lives. God has given us the promise and the needed strength to do it.
So many rest in a little corner of God’s inheritance because…there are giants, battles, and difficulties. All they want is a QLL (quiet little life) and a BLL (blessed little life). So instead of being all that God has made them to be, they settle down and camp. Leave the rest of the giants alone. They are all right.
Are you striving to do all that God has called you to do? For sure, if we’re going to conquer this territory we need strength, courage, faith in the promises of God, and a walk that pleases Him. Read the rest of Joshua chapter one! Doesn’t God promise that to those who walk in faith?
Let’s not settle down when the land is half conquered. Let’s take it all for the Lord.
Just one thing. By all means conquer your country, but at 4:30 in the morning be quiet about it!
Hmmm …