I’m sitting in the vet’s
office with a very unhappy young feline. She was okay in the car; a little curious
but not overly concerned. Now her tail is fluffed up like a feather duster and
she’s growling, a sound I’ve never heard from her before. The instrument poking
into her ears was bad enough, the prodding and squeezing of her abdomen was
worse, and then came the rabies shot and the growling if you accidentally touch
her where it now hurts.
To top things off,
this is only the preliminary round. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s getting
spayed in two weeks. That’s when things will really get ugly.
She’s hardly had a moment in her life around humans when she was not being petted, played with and
cared for. This must seem like we have completely betrayed her. I can see her
reassessing my son as he strokes her gently to calm her down, trying to figure
out whether she can trust him or not.
All of this is entirely necessary. Nobody has decided to play “Let’s torment the cat.” We love
the little furball and want the best for her. The alternative is to have her going
in and out of heat every few weeks for years; noisy for us but much more
distressing and uncomfortable for her.
But from the cat’s perspective? I totally get the whole growling thing. She cannot make the
connection between those strange internal sensations she’s been experiencing
for the last couple of weeks as she prowled the house howling in distress and
this unexpected trip in the car. She hasn’t got the capacity to grasp the big
picture; to understand the necessity to take a relatively small hit in the
short term in order to produce a much more desirable long term outcome.
We’ve opted for the
more-expensive but less-invasive laser spay procedure instead of the
traditional surgery, but the poor cat doesn’t know how much consideration and
expense has gone into minimizing her discomfort. She won’t know how many extra
hours her owner put in at the office to pay for it, or what he didn’t buy for
himself because he put her first. She’ll never have any idea how much worse
recovery from the other type of surgery might have been. She’ll only know that
this less painful, more expensive kind of surgery she’s receiving is not a
whole lot of fun.
She will not thank us for
our kindness when we’re done. She may even give me a finger chomp on the
way home to express her displeasure.
But that’s the cat’s perspective. Since we do not speak the same language, I can’t help her see
things differently.
* * * * *
The parable, I know,
is about as subtle as a shovel to the noggin. Sorry. But sometimes I think I see the more unpleasant circumstances of my life — sickness, injury, loss
of loved ones, accident, betrayal, impending job loss and other unexpected
sorrows — much like that cat sees hers.
But like the cat, I am in need of surgery, and so are you. I need to be remade —
transformed really — into the
likeness of the Son of God. If I don’t have this
operation, I’ll never be fit company for my Master. It’s by a million miles the
best possible outcome for a creature made of flesh, personality and spirit who
is so much smaller and insignificant in comparison to his Owner than a cat is
to you or me.
But man, does this surgery hurt! For some of us, it goes on for years. It involves major work on
heart, cranium, eyes, ears, mouth and limbs. All must be taught to operate
differently.
The cat and I cannot meaningfully communicate about what is happening to her. I can’t ask her permission to put
her through the surgical process because she is not capable of assessing the
situation and making the right decision about her own needs. We’re just going
to have to trust that she gets over it, and that the affection and care she
receives after her surgery will eventually outweigh whatever painful memories she retains.
God, on the other
hand, has been diligent to make his love, his will and his purposes known to
us. The whole surgical regimen is eloquently spelled out in his Word, and he
has put his Spirit in our hearts to make sure his intent is understood. He has
done everything possible to make this my choice, not just his. But because,
like the cat, my capacity to fully grasp what he is telling me is limited, there
are facts and implications about this process that I do not and will not
understand until it is complete. When I come across one of these, also like the
cat, I have to decide whether or not to trust.
There is no other way. There is no better option here.
But sometimes I still
see things from the cat’s perspective.
This all seems reasonable at first glance but does not hold up to further analysis. The main point being that we are not cats. We are built to precisely understand and analyze our surroundings (given our individual capabilities), which includes the ability to observe, understand, analyze and respond to our surroundings, relationships, and influences. Obviously the source and direction of events and influences that affect us cannot immediately be understood always in its totality but probably can approximately be known. This means that unlike cats we are responsible for how our environment evolves at least to the extent that we understand it barring emotional and intellectual handicaps. We are not left guessing in view of our (biblical) knowledge of right and wrong and will therefore be accountable (unlike cats).
ReplyDeleteI'm really not thinking about knowing right from wrong so much as the difficulties we have fully understanding God's disciplinary dealings with his children in the process of transforming us into the likeness of his Son.
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