A Dog, a Cat, a Mouse, and Snakes in a Tub

“A Dog, a Cat, a Mouse, and Snakes in a Tub”

            In case you missed the story, the United States Navy shot down one of our spy satellites several years ago. Don’t worry. It deserved to be shot down. It was broken and a threat to crash to earth and spread toxic gas everywhere. With all of the reality TV shows currently on the air we certainly don’t need any more toxic gas.

            It was a perfect shot but there was a complication. The satellite was 150 miles above the earth but there was also a space station at 215 miles above the earth. The brains at NASA assured the space station crew they were in no danger. As a precaution, when the astronauts took their spacewalk, they wore hunter orange.

            On a more slithery note, a man in Texas set a world record and it had nothing to do with chili, armadillos, or cows, all very prominent in Texas. He sat in a see-through bathtub for 45 minutes. Before you run out and try to break that record, he sat with 87 rattlesnakes that still had their fangs and venom. The key to his safety was remaining calm and moving slowly. Evidently sudden or rapid movement scares rattlesnakes quicker than a hungry Texan with a skillet. Had it been me I would have either sneezed or some fun-loving person would have tossed a mouse into the tub.

            I was in Santa Fe, New Mexico one summer. I spent one afternoon sitting on a bench on the square.   There were lots of people with pets. I saw a Chihuahua on a leash, a Chihuahua on the loose, a Chihuahua in someone’s arms, and a Chihuahua up in arms, it’s natural habitat.

I also saw a man sitting on the sidewalk. He had a Labrador Retriever, a cat, and a mouse.  The mouse was lying on the cat who was lying on the dog who was lying on the sidewalk. Once in a while the cat licked the dog, then the mouse. When they moved around it was in the same order, the mouse on the cat, on the dog.  When last I saw the quartet the dog was walking behind his master, with the cat following on a leash tied to the dog’s tail, with the mouse riding contentedly on the cat.

What a great picture of life. We all have days where we are the dog. We are at the bottom of the heap, everything is on our shoulders, and like the man in the tub we are surrounded and almost overwhelmed. Sometimes we are the cat. We are overcoming most but we still have some things pressuring us. Then there are days when we are the mouse. We are on top of the world and nobody can stop us. Everything is pretty calm but there is always that lingering fear that at any moment someone is going to toss a mouse into the tub.

That’s the way life goes.  We never know what’s going to happen. First Thessalonians 5:18 tells us to “give thanks in everything” and Philippians 4:6 tells us to “be anxious for nothing.” We don’t have to thank God for our circumstances but we must continue to praise God during our circumstances because He is in control and it is foolish for us to worry.

One more observation. The dog, the cat., and the mouse? They never strayed too far from their master. And neither should we.