The Welcome Valley Reader

My Cat's Food is Eating His Food!
My cat's food is eating his food!
OK, now that you're thoroughly confused, here's what's happening. Every morning, I put out two and a half to three handfuls of dry cat food. Prince eats some of it. Then, he wanders off to hunt. It is summer. The woods and fields are full of birds and rodents. A cat is a natural hunter, and the summer countryside is a hunter's paradise. (Humans who hunt must, of course, wait for fall and the legal hunting season, but that's another story.)
I don't particularly enjoy seeing Prince hurt small animals, but that's the way he's made. Besides, the vet says fresh meat is healthier for him than dry cat food. Hunting gets my fat cat exercise. It also gives him a nutrient-rich diet that digests better and contains fewer calories. He needs to hunt.
While he is out stalking little creatures in the bushes, other little creatures come up on the front porch. The cat food sits unguarded in its bowl. Chipmunks and bluejays help themselves. At least they aren't as troublesome as the flies that caused me to give up on the canned food he loved before the hunting got too good. Hunting would be easy if Prince were at home when his live food came to his cat dish. The dish would serve as bait to draw in his prey. But he isn't home. He's out looking in other places. His live food eats his commercial food. His bowl is sometimes nearly empty when he returns. The prey are preying on the predator. Something is backward here.
Actually, a similar backward problem has plagued more than cats for many years. God planned for Christians to have power over sin. The Bible says that sin shall not have dominion over us. We're supposed to be so empowered by God that we can hunt out and destroy the sin from our lives. Yet, many Christians spend far too much time under the power of sin. Outside attractions call them away from their place in God's presence. Away from their Source of strength, they yield to temptation. In yielding, they become servants of sin. They aren't reigning as the kings and priests God intends His children to be. They aren't showing the power of Christ to destroy the works of the devil. Rather, they are being defeated by a power much smaller than the God they claim indwells them. The defeated enemy defeats the victor. Something is backward here.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. (Romans 6:11-13)
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