Thy Will Not Mine Be Done: My Cats' Willingness and Mine

Obedience is better than sacrifice,
and submission than the fat of rams.

1 Sm 15:21

Obedience is not Deliah’s or Susie’s strongest trait. In fact, they both lack submission and obedience. They rule the house rather than our ruling them. I suspect such is the relationship with the species, cat.

Scientists studying the origins of cats have concluded that cats chose humans rather than humans choosing them. A recent article in Scientific American, The Taming of the Cat, emphasizes the irony: “as to utility to humans, let us just say cats do not take instruction well. Such attributes suggest that whereas other domesticates were recruited from the wild by humans who bred them for specific tasks, cats most likely chose to live among humans because of opportunities they found for themselves.” Let’s face it. You don’t often see a cat run and fetch a stick. Or roll over. Or better yet, meow three times on your command.

But for humans, obedience and submission are often a sign of faith rather than a display of weakness. In faith, we find strength. Life presents many, many things for which we have no control—illness, accidents, loss of jobs, homes. The only options we have are to accept where we are, pray and hope. When fear and worry cause us to ask where God is or why this has happened to me, we do need to depend on God. Faith helps us leave God in charge.

I was watching TV earlier today and saw one of the many amazing rescues in Haiti. A woman was being pulled from a collapsed bank which was now being bulldozed. They assumed no one inside was still alive. When she emerged, she burst into song. In French Creole, she sang deeply and reverently, “Lord, let me not fear death.” Five days entombed inside a collapsed building and now resurrection. Now, glory. Yet she still sang to the Lord for His will not hers. I can’t imagine being witness to such a magnificent manifestation of faith.

Obedience and submission are words that oppose modern thought. Yet how routinely I repeat the phrase, “Thy will not mine be done.” Do I possess the faith of the woman buried beneath that building or am I as willful as my cats?