{"id":6358,"date":"2015-04-14T02:05:27","date_gmt":"2015-04-14T02:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=6358"},"modified":"2015-04-14T02:19:59","modified_gmt":"2015-04-14T02:19:59","slug":"a-lesson-from-gideon-the-cat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=6358","title":{"rendered":"A lesson from Gideon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due time. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.<\/em> Psalm 145:15-16<\/p>\n

Gideon has a personality like Barney Fife. That cat virtually sniffs with cockiness around his feline siblings, nosing his way into anyone\u2019s food bowl whenever he pleases–even\u00a0the bowl of\u00a0his 19-pound brother. You see, it\u2019s not the size<\/em> of the cat that counts; it\u2019s the size of the attitude<\/em>. Gideon has attitude in spades.<\/p>\n

But like Barney Fife, underneath Gideon\u2019s bluster lies a great big scaredy cat. Just sneeze when he\u2019s snoozing sweetly next to you, and up he leaps with a start, wild-eyed with terror, scrambling for cover. The mighty Gideon is first to flee with a knock on the door or the roar of the vacuum. You get the picture.<\/p>\n

And Sunday morning before church, God used this little red cat to convey profound spiritual truth to me.<\/p>\n

I stumbled out of bed that morning feeling like a cross between a corpse and an empty Hostess cupcake wrapper\u2014surely the result of that humongous piece of caramel apple pie I devoured on Saturday. I ached in more places than I didn\u2019t, and as I groped for coffee it dawned on me that God was somewhere out there\u2026and that He wasn\u2019t aching.<\/p>\n

The cats, certain they would starve to death, demanded immediate attention. I obliged, feeding the girls upstairs in the kitchen, and separating the boys from each other in the basement.<\/p>\n

They grew up eating the same thing in the same room, playing musical chairs with their food bowls\u2014every meal, all meal long\u2014until every bite was gobbled up. No big deal\u2014no one starved\u2014and I was free to do my own thing.<\/p>\n

But now the boys\u00a0both have special needs. Rowe eats\u00a0specific food for urinary tract health support, and\u00a0Gideon was diagnosed a few months ago with failing kidneys\u2014as a result, he\u2019s on a strict low-protein diet. His health and telltale behavioral issues have improved, but I hover like a hawk\u2014he\u2019s convinced everyone else\u2019s food is much better than his. Frustrated with his pickiness and insistence that he search out everyone else\u2019s bowl, I quickly learned that he would eat his food if I fed it to him with a plastic spoon. Now all I have to say when he ignores his dish is, \u201cWanna spoon?\u201d and there he is, basking in the attention\u2014lick, lick, lick. Chew, chew, chew. Shake, shake, shake\u2014crumbles of cat food flying. And then lick, lick, lick all over again. He milks it for all it\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n

That morning, I was absent-mindedly aching and thinking that it had been way too long since I\u2019d really<\/em> dug into the Word as I spoon-fed my red menace. Minutes crawled by. And then Rowe wanted out of his breakfast room and Gideon wanted Rowe\u2019s leftovers. And the girls wanted anything they could find flung around from Gideon\u2019s mess.<\/p>\n

After securing the leftovers for their rightful owners later on, I wrote in my journal, \u201cI\u2019m craving my relationship with the Word, Lord. I\u2019ve gotta do that for which I was created\u2014feast on Your Word and receive food and revelation by Your hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then it hit me:\u00a0God\u00a0wants me\u00a0to become like Gideon!<\/em> That cat didn\u2019t just want food<\/em>\u2014he insisted that I<\/em><\/strong> spoon-feed him. He wanted his food and<\/em> closeness with me. In the same way, God didn\u2019t want me to ignore Him<\/em> while I downed verse after verse, chapter after chapter (shaking off chunks of Scripture before I wolfed down some more)\u2014that wasn\u2019t the way He wanted me to feed on His Word. He wanted me to sit with Him\u2014like Gideon did with me\u2014and feed on the portions of Scripture that He<\/em> saw fit to feed me by His hand.<\/p>\n

Even though I get annoyed with Gideon\u2019s \u201clove of the spoon\u201d, I am noticing great improvements in his feline quality of life. Gideon is a living example of how all of us\u00a0should become in our relationship with the Lord and His Word.<\/p>\n

And the amazing thing is this: God will never<\/em> get annoyed\u00a0when\u00a0any<\/em> of us\u00a0persistently push in for\u00a0closeness with Him\u00a0while\u00a0feeding on His Word! He enjoys<\/em> it!<\/p>\n

Gotta go\u2014the cats\u00a0are telling me\u00a0it’s\u00a0dinnertime.<\/p>\n

Dorothy<\/p>\n

…like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation…<\/em> 1 Peter 2:2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due time. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. Psalm 145:15-16 Gideon has a personality like Barney Fife. That cat virtually sniffs with cockiness around his feline siblings, nosing his way into anyone\u2019s food bowl whenever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everyday-observations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6358"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6375,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6358\/revisions\/6375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}