LEARN BY OBSERVATION
One can learn plenty by observation, if eyes are opened. Funny things can happen in our lives to illustrate a point, a message, a teaching, etc. To illustrate this, I have a story about my daughter’s cat. Now for me, a cat symbolizes something for the most part — positive. In this story and the message to follow, this cat symbolized a moment in time how animals can be used to teach. Jesus often used parables. He spoke this way so that His message would be received to man through the Holy Spirit profound truths; heavenly messages to those willing to see; hear, and understand.
MULAN
A story I wrote in my journal years ago about a tabby cat named Mulan…
I am constantly testing Mulan to see if she is obedient to my rules around the apartment. For instance, she is not allowed in my bedroom. Under no circumstances is Mulan to place even one paw in my room, or else she pays the consequences of punishment by water bottle administered to her back side with three squirts. (I test her by leaving my bedroom door open) Of course, she runs and hides, but I find her always for I know all her hiding areas. Mulan knows how to open my bedroom door if the door is shut but barely open. She gets up on her back legs and uses her front paws to try to turn the handle. When she was a kitten, I thought it would be a cute idea to teach her how to open doors like humans; I have changed my mind, that was a dumb idea. But, it the door is closed tightly, she cannot get in, so I laugh. I merely made her think she could open doors. What can I say? I receive humor by watching a blue tabby cat try to get away with something. Also, Mulan likes to chase the flies around the apartment and catch fast crawling bugs. I told Mulan that everyone has to work, and there was more to her life than eating, drinking, licking self clean, sleeping and using her litter box. Mulan is good at finding the bugs that dare to enter my apartment, but merely bats at them with her paws. I told her she had to eat them and she looked at me like I was crazy. But I praised her for finding the bug in the first place and told her she earned her stay for another day. She likes to jump up on the sofa and bat at the flies, but knows that she cannot touch the shade with her paw or else. Sometimes she will look to see if I am watching and if I am not, she will move the shade. Otherwise, she gets frustrated by all my rules of not touching shades and jumping up on the kitchen counter, lest she get another rub-a-dub, kitty-in-the-tub bath. For some reason however, she still jumps in the tub to lick the faucet, and when I catch her doing that, guess what? Mulan receives another bath. I asked Mulan who was the boss around here one day, and she took her paw and touched my cheek. I told her she was right, and to be sure to tell all her friends.
Do you treat God with respect, reverence and love as is commanded? Do you tell all your friends who do not know Christ, about Him?
ARE YOU A LION OR A CAT?
So, are you a lion or a cat? And when I speak of lion, I affectionately think of the character “Aslan” who as a lion symbolized Jesus in “The Chronicles of Narnia” series of books as penned by Author, C.S. Lewis.
BECOME LIKE JESUS, THE LION OF JUDAH
As children of God, we are to become like Him. We are to grow up in Him and to do the works that He did when here on earth to teach us so we in turn do the same. We all have a purpose in the Body of Christ. Some are given little, some more. But to those who are given the more (of spiritual and other type gifts) more is required. Are we obedient to God? Or do we just couch-potato it through life and do our own thing? I know at times the Holy Spirit will test a person on a particular thing, and the testing helps one to grow. Can a person hide from God? No. He knows everything, even to how many hairs a person has on his/her head. A bedroom is a place to rest to be sure, but also wonderful to soak in Him like in a prayer closet. He loves that. How desperate do we need to be to open the door of the secret place of the Most High God and soak in His presence and worship Him as He should be. I personally desire to be actively seeking Him to be in that place where I want more of Him. But in truth, He wants more of us. All of us and not just a speck. The Holy Spirit would love to hear us roar like a lion, to be watchful like the watchman on the wall, to be more of Him, Jesus, the Lion of Judah.
Matthew 13:10-17
New King James Version (NKJV)The Purpose of Parables
10 And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”11 He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12 For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. 13 Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14 And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:
‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive;
15 For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should[a] heal them.’16 But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; 17 for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
Rita Kay Whitt © 2018
