Moses The Cat

 

 

    Meow, Meow, Meoooooooow!”

     “Do you hear that?” my wife, Regina, asked.

     “Yes, it sounds like a cat.”

     “Meow, Meooooow, Meooooooooow!”

    “Richard, you better go check.  It sounds like it is in trouble.”

     As I walked down the hill to the creek behind our house, the pitiful cries grew louder and louder.  At the creek, I discovered a small, gray kitten caught in a tangle of roots on the far side of the creek.  To reach it, I had to find a narrow place to wade across the creek, then fight my way through a mass of bushes and briars.  When I finally reached the drenched kitten, it frantically held on to the roots.  I had to pull with all of my strength to retrieve it.

     Because of how fiercely the kitten had struggled to hold on to the roots, I was afraid that it would fight me like a little tiger, but when I held it close, it melted into my chest.  Almost immediately I heard a soft, gentle purring.  “Hello, Moses,” I whispered.  “Your name will have to be Moses because I drew you out of the water.”

     I carried Moses to our back porch.  Regina brought towels and an old pet taxi, and we dried him off and made him a soft bed in the pet taxi.  When I put Moses down, though, he immediately climbed up my leg and perched on my shoulder.

     Our back porch became Moses’ home.  He was firmly attached to it.  The world beyond the back porch was a strange and scary place into which he would not venture.  If I carried him into the yard, he would begin desperately clawing and fighting.  He wanted down so he could get back to the safety of the back porch.

    As I remember how Moses came into our lives, it reminds me of how my relationship with God has developed.  I remember being in the creek.  In Psalm 69:1–3, David wrote about his experience in the creek: “Save me,        O God!  For the waters have come up to [my] neck.  I sink in the deep mire, where [there is] no standing; I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.  I am weary with my crying; my throat is dry.”

     When Moses cried out, I came to his rescue.  God has made a promise to us.  “Call to Me, and I will answer you.”  Jeremiah 33:3.  When we cry out, God will answer our call, and He will bring us to a place of safety.

     Moses found a place of peace and safety on the back porch.  He knew that as long as he was there nothing bad would happen to him.  God has provided a place of peace and safety for us.  “Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble.”  Psalm 119:165.  We need to look at God’s law the way that Moses looked at the back porch.  He realized that it was his place of peace and safety, and he wanted to be there.  Anyplace else made him very uncomfortable.

     Many times we look at God’s law as a jail.  We feel that it creates uncomfortable restrictions.  We need to ask God to give us a love for His commandments and to instill in us a desire for the peace and safety of His law.  No one forced Moses to stay on our back porch; he stayed because he loved the feeling of security.  That is how we should view God’s law. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.  And His commandments are not burdensome.”  1 John 5:3.

Richard Lawry