My tom cat, Young Man, loves to jump up next to me on the couch, throw himself down next to me and roll over on his back so that I can rub his belly. He looks up at me with what I like to think of as adoration. He loves me and he loves belly rubs. He will lay like that forever if you will keep rubbing his belly, and then he will sleep there purring loudly all the while. However, if he hears a loud sound or I make a sudden movement, he jumps up and runs for cover. The moment of peaceful bliss is gone in an instant of fear.
I sometimes wonder if I am not guilty of the same thing as far as God is concerned. There are moments where I feel the presence of God and it feels as if I could just sit there and soak it in. I feel like nothing could ever move me from my trust in God. I am firmly rooted and will not be moved. Suddenly, something happens. It could be a stressful drive into work, a disagreement with friends or family, or a change we didn’t anticipate with work. We jump up and run for cover.
We tell ourselves it is natural to step away and assess the situation. In actuality, we are stepping away from God…we are moved. Correction, we move. We let the situation dictate our emotions, and fear gets a foothold. We run around trying to figure out how to deal with the situation when our first action should have been to look to God for direction.
Like Peter, when we take our eyes off of God, we are suddenly drowning in the water that we were just walking across in faith. The weight of the world pulls us down into the depths and we struggle. When we quit struggling and look up, we float to the surface and find God right where we left Him.
While the instinct to run is an admirable trait in a cat, it is not an admirable trait in a child of God. As long as we keep our eyes on Our Father, we will not drown in the world of troubles. He will make a way for us if we will keep still and look to Him. Young Man is a flight risk. It doesn’t take much to have him running for cover. We, on the other hand, must remember that we are never safer than when we are sitting at Our Father’s feet, looking up at him with adoration. For when we are there, nothing can touch us.