Every morning I call out to my three cats, \u201cWho wants to go potty?\u201d and like clockwork, all three without hesitation trot down to the basement where I keep the litter pans. I do this because one\u2014Gideon\u2014was having issues with not using the litter box. The Lord directed me to make litter pan time as pleasurable as possible, and for cats, that means not only clean litter, but also treats, strokes, and congratulatory baby talk for proper litter pan use. Don’t knock it; it works for us.<\/p>\n
I also keep a water bowl downstairs, up on a counter. After litter pan scooping and treats, I call out, \u201cWho wants fresh water?\u201d and rinse out the bowl and refill it. This is a big deal for Gideon who likes to drink the water off of his paw, similar to the way three hundred men did who were chosen for his namesake\u2019s army, the biblical Gideon.<\/p>\n
One morning Cammie beat him to the water bowl. I must have been extra groggy, because evidently I didn\u2019t announce the fresh water for his highness, Gideon. Cammie daintily lapped up some of it, and then Gideon noticed that she was in \u201chis spot\u201d. Shoving her out of the way, he sat. And sat. And sat. He looked at me as if to say, \u201cHave you lost your mind, woman? Where\u2019s my fresh water?\u201d<\/p>\n
Have you ever tried reasoning with an animal? I tried; it didn\u2019t work. There Gideon sat, on his throne, staring at me, waiting for his fresh water.<\/p>\n
Grumbling, I poured the perfectly fresh water into the sink and made a show of refilling the bowl. Gideon was meowing up a storm as I set Fresh Water 2.0 in front of him. Happy, he pawed it and drank his fill.<\/p>\n
And then as soon as Gideon shut up, the Lord began talking. He showed me that even though the cat had already been given fresh water, he didn\u2019t believe it. Gideon expected his water to arrive a certain way every day or he\u2019d have nothing to do with it; he expected a showy presentation.<\/p>\n
We believers have a tendency to be like Gideon if we aren\u2019t careful. We have fresh, life-giving water available 24\/7 in the pages of God\u2019s Word, ready for the drinking, and yet so often we search here and there to \u201cget a fresh word\u201d. Like Gideon, we want to sit at the water bowl, refusing to drink until we get some showy presentation. Instead of majoring on drinking from the Word ourselves, we want to know \u201cBut what does Brother or Sister So and So have to say about it?\u201d In other words, we wait\u00a0for someone else<\/i> to serve our water; all too often we don\u2019t trust that the Bible water we get on our own is \u201cfresh\u201d.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong. It\u2019s imperative to join regularly in fellowship with others to hear the Word. But what about in<\/em> between<\/em> these \u201cpit stops\u201d?<\/p>\n If the only water you drink is from another person\u2019s hand once or twice a week, be careful\u2014you\u2019re in grave danger of dehydration. And by the same token, if your primary source for spiritual edification\u00a0is random \u201cwords\u201d from various people, you may not be getting true water at all! There is only one \u201csure word of prophecy\u201d and that\u2019s the Bible, sitting right there on your table or desk. Don\u2019t be afraid to open it on your own<\/em> and drink long and often. It\u2019s guaranteed fresh, 24\/7.<\/p>\n It\u2019s sort of cute when Gideon the cat expects a showy presentation before he\u2019s willing to drink his fresh water. But for grown Christians to search for a \u201cword from God\u201d everywhere except<\/em> their own Bible? That’s not cute. That\u2019s dangerous.<\/p>\n Dorothy<\/p>\n So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.<\/em> 2 Peter 1:19<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every morning I call out to my three cats, \u201cWho wants to go potty?\u201d and like clockwork, all three without hesitation trot down to the basement where I keep the litter pans. I do this because one\u2014Gideon\u2014was having issues with not using the litter box. The Lord directed me to make litter pan time as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[210],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sword-of-the-spirit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7579","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=7579"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7596,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7579\/revisions\/7596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}