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| Move or freeze? |
Last
week, in an effort to keep our twentyish pound cat (NOT the one on my
lap) on this planet a bit longer than his current weight will
sustain, my husband bought “food balls.” They are little plastic
things that look like blue wiffle balls. (I prefer to call them remembralls or palantirs. But that's just me.) You put food inside, twist
to choose a hole size for food to come out, and the idea is that the
cats will chase the thing around until it chooses to dispense their
food, one bit at a time.
The
cats are not pleased. The first day, Pippin (twenty-pounder) rolled
his under some lumber, and I could not find it all day. I think this was planned sabotage.
Fact—these
animals have enjoyed their cushy deal of getting a bowl filled first
thing in the morning. (Ever had a cat jump on your face the moment
the alarm clicks on? They don't even wait for the music. One click
and it's “Feed me! Or I will eat your face.”) Anyway---they like
their gig. It's easy. No worries. No working to get their food.
Laying on laps or in sunbeams or on any clothing left around
(preferably black) all day after devouring their morning rations.
It's a pretty sweet deal, actually.
But
not a life.
Mike
Breen, in Building a Discipling Culture, says, “How much easier it
seems to stand still in what we know, regardless of how unfulfilling,
than to move into the unknown! The alive disciple is a disciple on
the move. God uses many different methods to stimulate movement—his
Word, his Spirit, and sometimes persecution—because his desire is
to see his followers reaching out to our dying world. Movement is an
indication of life.”
I
think we are like cats. Albeit less fuzzy. Like the children of
Israel at the Red Sea, like the disciples in the upper room, like
Theodin at Helm's Deep (you knew there would be a Tolkien reference
in there, didn't you?), we prefer to sit on the shore and outwait
whatever is out there. If staying put is scary, movement is
scarier. We are way too prone to sit safely on a lap rather than take
a step forward into the unknown. Even if that is the only way to
sustain life.
We are content to live partial lives.
We are content to live partial lives.
God
has forced me into some frightening forward momentum. I would never
have chosen some of the places I've been moved to. They were
terrifying, desolate places. But in those places I found a
life-sustaining grace I would never, ever have found staying put. And
once you've tasted more than a partial life? There is no fooling
yourself. You will never want to be a lap-sitter again.
We
are forcing our cats to move in order to live. We know that's the
natural order of things. We also know it's not the natural
inclination of man nor beast. So sometimes, we have to make ourselves
move.
Is
there a call on your life to, as Breen says, “reach out to our dying
world”? Where will it ask you to go? It just sent my friend
Jeanette (http://jeanettelevellie.blogspot.com) to a prison visiting room for the first time. (Believe me,
this is scary. I know.) But her joy at the outcome was life-giving.
It was blessed movement toward full life.
Today,
find out where you're being prodded to move. Get off the lap.
Movement is a sign that you're alive. Staying put is . . . not.
Please share your stories of movement here. They help all of us remember that the frightening, dark places are often the most beautiful.
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