This is our cat, Gabe. Or should I say, my wife’s cat.
Once upon a time, Gabe was my cat – but those times have changed. Gabe was originally a gift from my wife for our anniversary. Although I had stated for years that no other animals were allowed in our home unless they added to our per capita household income – I relented when he was presented as a gift.
The first few months with Gabe were pretty cool. From the start, Gabe bonded with me and would sit in my lap as I wrote or watched TV. At night he would come into our room and jump up on the bed to sleep. Some mornings I would find him curled in a ball in the crook of my arm. Gabe’s purr is loud, so it was always satisfying to hear him as he came around.
Yet something happened a few months ago, and Gabe isn’t the same toward me anymore. The best I can relate to it is that Gabe reached his teen years and discovered girls. Specifically, he discovered my girl – my wife. Gabe still checks in with me from time to time, but his affections are now totally focused on my wife. He curls up with her in the chair, follows her around, and purrs loudest when he is with her. Everyone else’s “Gabe Time” usually consists of him jumping on your lap when you are in the restroom. Very unwanted to say the least!
As we start a new year and I weighed my resolution I would start the year with, I thought about losing weight, writing another book, or taking up cycling. Then Gabe strolled through the room and gave me his obligatory 15 seconds of attention as he walked across my lap, paused to stare and purr, and then walked away to lay down on the other end of the couch. As I sat and shook my head, it came to me what my resolution this year should be.
I shouldn’t be like Gabe.
Sitting in my chair meditating on some studies I am working on, I realized that too often I have been like Gabe. Except not with other people – but with God. There are times when I’ve went from curling up with Him and enjoying my time with Him to a period when I stop by just long enough for Him to pet my head and feed me, and then I go to the other end of the couch to do my own thing.
Like Gabe, I can fall into a rut where I want to choose when it is convenient for me to hang out with God. I don’t stay long, and then I’m often trying to lead Him back to where I want to be, and asking Him to provide for me while He is there.
Sometimes when I’m feeding Gabe, I feel like he takes me for granted. I don’t particularly care for that feeling. Yet I have to be honest – too often I must act the same way to God, as I take Him for granted.
You see, we often start our relationship with God in a place of warm feelings and closeness. We look for time to spend in His presence and to interact with Him at a deep level. Yet if we don’t watch ourselves, over time we enter a new season of life and our attentiveness to Him wanes. We move on to other things that we enjoy more, and our time and affection for Him becomes less and less – until we come around only out of need or obligation. When we do come around, it is only to make ourselves feel better, not to rekindle the closeness we had experienced before.
Gabe will come around once and awhile and rub up against my legs and purr. Yet when I reach down to scratch his head or pet him, he will start to walk away. It’s a lot like the scripture meme we post on Facebook, or the church service we attend. Enough interaction to acknowledge God, but we won’t stick around to let Him truly reach in and touch our lives as He desires.
It reminds me of what Jesus said to the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:15 –
15 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot.
The church in Laodicea had fallen into a place where they no longer were hot for God, pursuing an ongoing, thriving relationship with Him. They weren’t running from Him either – in a place where they could possibly recognize where they had veered away and could right their direction. Instead, they were ‘”lukewarm”, and in a place where they thought all was fine because it was comfortable at the time. They saw no need to get hotter. If they were Gabe, they were content to rub against a leg and move on. They’d touched God for the day.
My New Year’s Resolution
So my New Year’s resolution is not to be like Gabe toward those I love, and most importantly, toward God.
I’m resolving to work to make each day one where I don’t go through the motions, but that I truly engage at a personal level.
I’m resolving to remember that God is the answer to any problem that I may face, and that I can find His plan when I spend time with Him and listen.
I’m resolving to treat God in our relationship as I would want to be treated. Not taken for granted, and realizing that His love for me doesn’t give me license to do as I please.
And now for my challenge to you:
Will you resolve this year to not be like Gabe? You have a new year in front of you with great possibilities. You can go into it just like the year before, or you can make the decision to be more and do more than ever before. In that doing and being more, you want to have great results. The best results you can have are found when God is ordering your steps and walking beside you to help make it to all He has for you. What will your answer be, and will you stay the course? This has the potential to be your best year ever.
Don’t be like Gabe. Be a better version of you.
