Cry Babies

Hello Emmanuel,

 My cat is a cry baby.  She didn’t always used to be that way.  When we first got her, she never meowed.  She sauntered around the house like she owned the place.  We gave her the driest, cheapest, cat food and water and she considered life as good and appropriate.  This went on for years…..

…. And then one day we ran out of cat food.  Instead of going to the store, we took the lazy way out and opened a can of tuna.  Our lives have forever been changed.

Now every time she hears us get the can opener out, she fully expects to get tuna (and since then, we have actually bought canned cat food.  Don’t ask.  I don’t know why.).  And she lets you know what she fully expects because she is the loudest meower I’ve ever met.  In addition, she winds herself around your feet as you try to fix your own breakfast.  I would get irritated with her, but it isn’t really her fault.  We have conditioned her to expect certain things.  Her standard of living has gone up.  And when it doesn’t stay up, we hear about it.

Sadly, humans are not much different.  We expect the world to meet our expectations based on what we have learned in the past.  What we forget is that circumstances are constantly changing.  We don’t live in a static world.  The uncertainty of every day can, in fact, slap us in the face.  Just ask the common ‘Joe’ (or Julien) in Paris, France.

I often think about how tough life was 20 years ago when Kim and I got together.  The thing is, I didn’t think it was all that tough pastoring 3 churches, managing 3 kids and making 1/3 of the income we do now.  But to think about going back to that circumstance now fills me with dread.  I have been conditioned.  I guess you could say I’m spoiled in a relative sense.

So now it is time to pause and give thanks.  It’s time to stop thinking about how bad you have it or had it and start thinking about how good you have it.  It’s time to thank God for having the opportunity to be conditioned to expect the daily blessings.  Consider that you, too, are spoiled.  Think about what your ‘can of tuna’ has been.  And if it isn’t the sound of a can opener, what is it that causes you to expect something good to happen every day. 

…. And if you don’t get the ‘tuna’, do you really want to be known as the cry baby?  Or do you want to saunter around your day, figuring out that life is still pretty good?

God is Good,

Pastor Joe