“This people pays me lip service but their hearts is far from me.” Mark 7:6

I am a dog person, cats not so much. I have a friend who has a cat, a nice cat as far as cats go, but the darn thing has one very obnoxious habit: It likes to get close,

suffocatingly close. If you’re standing, it rubs against your leg, If you’re walking across a room, it practically entwines itself around your feet. If you’re stretched out on the floor, it tries to cuddle up to your neck, head, or shoulder. Given half a chance, it will sit across your chest or stomach! It is persistent. You can kick it half way across the room, and within seconds it comes back, trying to snuggle up to you again (I would never kick a cat, so calm down cat lovers).

You may not believe it, but my image of God is more like that cat. I noticed it a long time ago, and so I have kept my eyes peeled and ears tuned. The list is too long to enumerate, but look at some of the biblical images: God created us in his image and breathed his life into us. We are referred to as his family, his adopted children, lambs he hugs to his chest, his bride, and in a motherly relationship, as chicks she has gathers under her wings.
 
God’s ultimate embrace is the Incarnation: in the person of Jesus, God becomes a human being to express his love for us. Jesus teaches his followers that the kingdom is within them. Even after that, when Jesus is about to die, what does he do but give us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink? We are the Body of Christ in the world living through his presence, carrying on his work in the world.

God acts a whole lot like that crazy cat. If God can compare himself to a mother hen, it seems appropriate to compare him to a cat! It seems to me that he’s all over us, smothering us with affection. He just won’t go away.
 
Blessings,

Pastor Terry