House cats just have to be a special creation of God to teach us important lessons of patience and servant-hood. My husband and I have not one but two teacher cats, But wait. What am I saying? Let me try that again. A more accurate description is that we are the faithful servants of two cats who have chosen to live in the house that we built for them. The cats let us live here with them as long as we put out food and water for them every day. And as we clean out their litter box and take them to the vet for their medical checkups, the might put up with us. Their most pressing agenda each day? Lazily stand, stretch, and follow the patch of the sun that moves across the carpet.
When I think of doing things your own way at your own pace, our cats come to mind. Cats seem totally independent and aloof. They march to the beat of a feline drummer that just doesn’t make sense to us human servants. If Boots has been outside for a while, I may open the door for him to come in. He sits there and just looks at me as if to say, “What did you open the door for? I am not ready to come in yet. Give me another 93 seconds and I’ll come in – if I want to – when I m good and ready.” We have all heard the impossible described as “herding cats.” We find no references to house cats in the Bible. They must have been around, but Scripture is totally silent when it comes to them. Could Isaiah have better said it: “We all, like cats, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”