Like Giving Medicine to A Cat…

I’m sitting at home one night; mindlessly watching TV with Cathy when a commercial comes on for a product that will cure some ailment for a cat.

They show the human and she is happy. They show the cat and it too is happy. They show the family and everyone is happy.

As the saying goes; “Happy cat, happy homelife” or something like that.

The commercial is so moving that I stand on my feet because I, too, want this kind of rich and abundant life, and I reach for my car keys and my wallet.

And then reason prevails and I think of at least three reasons why I shouldn’t pick up this product…

Number One: The side effects are devastating for the cat. They include depression, difficulty with swallowing, vomiting, and diarrhea.

“Yeah, that’s what I want”; I say to Cathy. “A cat who is now depressed, because it can’t swallow and is projecting fluids from both of its major orifices!” I sit back down on couch, trying to get that image out of my head.

The second reason why I shouldn’t pick up this product is; “Have you ever tried to give medicine to a cat?!”

I don’t care how happy the humans and the cat are, it is very apparent that whoever wrote this commercial clearly has never tried to give medicine to a cat!

Simply put, you don’t! Take it from one who has tried you can’t; period.

When I was a young lad, my family tried to hide the medicine in our cat’s food. The cat showed us what’s what and ate every morsel of food as it pushed aside the medicine we had cleverly hidden inside of the food dish.

None of us felt safe to go to sleep after the cat gave us the; “Don’t ever try that again” look and hissed at us.

When my children were young, Cathy and I tried giving medicine to one of their cats.

I told Cathy to bypass the ‘hiding-it-in-the-food’ trick because experience taught us to not even go there…

So, we tried the ‘take-two-people-to give-it -to-the-cat’ approach. That is where two people (usually the parents) are needed because one holds the cat’s mouth open as the other shoves (or attempts to shove) the medicine down it’s throat.

It’s kind of a good-cop, bad-cop trick that never really works.

We thought that by one of us speaking lovingly to the cat while prying open the mouth, somehow the cat would trust us as the other person shoved the medicine down the throat. After all, we were trying to help the cat get better; we were doing something for the good of the cat.

 

This, too, ends up with the cat hissing as it gave us the; “Don’t ever try that again” look.

It also includes many memories burned into my children’s cerebral cortex as they watched in horror as their beloved cat resisted our attempts to heal it by yowling to the point of being ridiculous; memories that therapists would later refer to as “billable hours” as they attempted to help us get those images out of all of our heads. 

Oh, and third reason why I shouldn’t pick up this product is, I don’t own a cat or any pet for that matter….

I changed the channel on the tv and then, in true pondering fashion, I thought of God and how I act towards Him as He attempts to do something for my own good.

How I push away all that He does for my good.

How I yowl and resist and work hard to not take what God has “put in my food dish” that will help me.

How I think that at times He can seem to me to be overbearing and too demanding as I hiss at Him as I give the; “Don’t ever try that again” look.

But the truth is that everything He does is for my good; after all, I am made in His image and (as a Christian) bear His Name.

The truth is that He owns me; I belong to Him.

He doesn’t want to shove anything down my throat. He wants is asking me to stop resisting Him and stop struggling and to take the medicine.

He says to me; “…open your mouth wide and I will fill it.” (Psalm 81:10).

“So the Lord must wait for you to come to Him so that He can show you His love and compassion. For the Lord is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for His help.” (Isaiah 30:18)

Reaching Beyond The Rules

In the Bible, there was no disease regarded with more terror than leprosy because of how much damage it did and because it was so highly contagious.

According to Leviticus 13 the Leper was banished from fellowship with people, and had to live alone outside of the camp as well as wear torn clothes. The worst part is that he had to cry “Unclean, Unclean!”, warning people he was around.

He was not only physically sick, but had to bear the mental anguish of a life of isolation being totally banished from society: treated as though dead. A leper was hated by others until he came to hate himself. Many considered and took their own lives – SUICIDE.

During the time of Jesus the leper was barred from Jerusalem. In the synagogue there was a room set aside for them alone. It was ten feet high by six feet wide. If a leper put his head in a house, the whole house was considered and deemed to be defiled.

In public it was illegal to greet a leper. People had to stay at least six feet away. And, if the wind was blowing at least one hundred and fifty feet away; what an embarrassment!

Besides the hurt from the physical pain was the mental pain of embarrassment, isolation, and loneliness connected with the disease. Real leprosy was incurable; BUT if he was cured, he had to go through a very complicated and embarrassing ceremony of restoration (Lev. 14).

In the Bible in MARK 1:40-45 is the story of Jesus healing a leper. I personally think that it is one of the most revealing pictures of Jesus. Jesus reacted and moved with compassion as he saw the agony, stretched out His hand, and TOUCHED the leper!

The law stated that Jesus must avoid contact by staying at least six feet away because any closer and Jesus ran a desperate risk of an infection. And yet Jesus stretched out His hand and TOUCHED the leper.

What was Jesus thinking? In that culture, Jesus risked breaking the Jewish laws, losing His place in the synagogue, as well as getting leprosy Himself which oftentimes resulted in death.

Jesus did not drive away a man who broke the law. For Jesus there was only one law: TO LOVE. For Jesus there was only one response: TO HELP.

The obligation of love superseded the law, rules, and regulations. Human need was met with understanding and compassion, and Jesus stretched out His hand and TOUCHED the leper!

Jesus stretched out His hand and touched the leper to show us what the FATHER is really like so we can understand that this is how we, too, will be treated when we come to the Father.

The law led people to believe that God hated lepers & sinners. After all, look at how God said to treat them in Leviticus. But that is looking through the eyes of the law. He loved life and that is why He quarantined the lepers. And it was the Father’s mercy that produced compassion that moved Jesus.

Matthew 9:12-13 “When Jesus heard that, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I DESIRE MERCY AND NOT SACRIFICE.' For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

The essence of Christianity is to touch the untouchables, love the unlovable, and to forgive the unforgivable. A true Christian will break convention to take a risk to help a fellow man in need. An example of this is Mother Teresa who was willing to touch the untouchables.

So, who are the untouchables in your community that God wants you to touch? People who are rejected by society who are in your neighborhood, your church or your family; that your life NEVER touches because you choose not to?

Luke 9:54-56 “And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?" But He turned and rebuked them, and said, "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them." And they went to another village.”

So, who are the untouchables God wants you to touch? People whose lives are falling apart and their destructive behavior is eating away their life like leprosy?

Matthew 9:36 “But when He (Jesus) saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.”

Who are the untouchables God wants you to touch?

• Whom God has been trying to get you to touch
• But your rules have made it easy for you to say “no”
• Your rules have made it easy to keep the at a distance
  

Who are the untouchables God wants you to touch TODAY as you reach beyond the rules?

The Gift of 5 Minutes of Silence

It was one of those times of misunderstanding when talking only made things worse. Every thought, every word, every action was misconstrued and seemed to bring an even greater chasm to the already widening gap between two old time, best friends.

 

The only solution was to stop trying to fix it and be silent until the emotions stabilized, and yet, what makes sense to do oftentimes goes undone as one more attempt is tried to fix things…an impossible task, not unlike Evel Knievel trying to jump the Grand Canyon on his “motorcycle”.

 

And yet we still tried until I left the house in utter frustration as hopelessness flooded every fiber of my very being.

 

I decided to send a text to a good friend of mine to ask him to pray. I knew that he too had been going through a rough time with his bride and felt that he would pray with compassion.

 

I got in my truck to drive around as I tried to figure out what to do next. Shortly after I sent the text a reply came, giving me some words of wisdom to regain my perspective which couldn’t see beyond that night.

 

We exchanged texts back and forth until at one point he asked me if he could call so that we could talk live. I sent back a text suggesting that he call me.

 

Now, lest you get off track wondering why I was texting and driving, I had pulled off the road each time that I received and sent a text.

 

He called and asked me a simple question; whether or not I was still driving. I told him that actually I had pulled off the road because I really couldn’t figure out where to go. So he did something for me that my soul longed for; he told me to stop and be silent and said nothing for five minutes as I sat in my truck with a phone to my right ear as cars drove past me.

 

After five minutes of complete silence, he asked a simple, rhetorical question; “When was the last time you had five minutes of uninterrupted silence?” Tears streamed down my face as I realized that I hadn’t taken time to stop and do nothing. This was exactly what I really needed; the gift of five minutes of silence

 

Psalm 46:10 shouted out to me deep within my spirit; “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”

 

Often times when friends come to us in a time of need, we feel as though we need to fix their problems or come up with a solution to make their pain go away. So, like Job’s friends (see Job chapter 2 in the bible), we subjectively come up with reasons and possibilities as to why they got into their predicament as well as tell the hurting person how to fix their problem.

 

Job’s friends started off correctly in trying to help Job. The Bible records that they sat down with Job “on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.”

 

Great job friends of Job! But then after nothing changed, they opened their mouths and blasted their friend Job with information, judgment, and opinions that did more damage than good.

 

What Job really needed was the gift of silence so that God could speak to Job and into his situation.

 

That is what my friend did for me; no advice, no counsel, nothing but the gift of silence so that God could speak to me and into my situation. And God did speak, and calmed my heart, and gave me advice, and then I went home.

 

And all was well again with me and my best friend.