This was the opening illustration and title of a series of talks I did for a church on the weekend away several years back.
I asked the question
“What is the difference between cats and dogs”.
There are two answers. The first is :
When you welcome a dog into your home, feed it, provide it with a bed, stroke it, give it treats etc. Then it will look at you and think: “wow, what kind of person would treat me like this. They are like a god to me.” Do the same with a cat however and they will look at you and think “wow, what kind of a creature am I for them to treat me like this. I must be like a god to them.”
Now this raises the question about how we view ourselves and understand God’s grace. Does it cause gratitude and awe or does it puff us up with pride.
The second difference is this.
A dog is capable, even if they have not done anything wrong of looking at you in a way that suggests they feel incredibly guilty. A cat on the other hand, even if they have something terribly wrong can look at you in a way that makes you feel guilty.”
On that church weekend, this led into teaching on the difference between real guilt and false guilt, the problem of shame and the danger of being a guilt driven church. A lot of the kinds of things we discussed in yesterday’s article.
The other year, I reproduced those talks on the podcast and you can listen to them here.
Faithroots 