Thought for the Day – 14th March 2013

The Kitten

We’ve had a new arrival in our house… No not a baby, – a kitten! A little fluffy cuddly ball of life and vitality. She arrived on New Year’s Eve, shy and frightened, hiding under seats and refusing to eat. Within a few days she had completely changed, and a couple of months later she’s completely at home. Every part of our house is now a cat adventure playground. Every room and surface has been thoroughly explored, everything that moves has been swatted with a furry paw, every seat is a jumping off point for some other part of the room. She plays and jumps and climbs and runs until she is exhausted and then she clambers up onto the most comfortable chair in the house and curls up for one of those long peaceful catnaps. The kitten who arrived as a wee trembling bundle of fur is now completely at home and completely content.

And that makes me think about contentment, for there seems to be so much striving and so much discontentment in this life.. It must have been always like this for St Paul wrote to Timothy and said, ‘Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment.’

In the Old Testament, the prophet Elisha responded to an act of kindness done by a Godly Shumenite woman, by offering her influence or power, after all, he knew both the king and the commander of the army. Her reply indicates that she was just content with what she had. She replied, ‘I dwell among my own people’. Life for her was a settled matter. She had everything she needed and was completely content.

And Paul’s words to Timothy remind us that the most settled life, the life with the most potential for contentedness is the life that has been surrendered to God. When we have the fulfilment and satisfaction and sense of purpose that we get from that personal relationship with God, through Christ, what more could we need from this life – we can be content with whatever we have.

A hymn writer put it like this, ‘When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll. Whatever my lot, thy hast taught me to know, it is well, it is well, with my soul’

So I look at our wee kitten, happy and content, resting on the lap of someone she has come to love, completely trusting, and I hope that I’m just as content, just as trusting, resting in the love of Christ.