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| A member congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America | ||
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July It's a true story - or so the person who sent it to me claims. True or not, it's certainly a wonderful story. Given the behavior of the pastor in the story, my conclusion is that it has to be true. At any rate, a pastor had a cat who got treed. The branch on which the cat clung was very high, too high for the pastor to climb to in order to retrieve the cat. Pondering the situation, the pastor suddenly had a brilliant idea: since the tree was young and supple, the pastor figured that he could bend the tree over and bring the cat within reach by tying a rope around the tree and to the bumper of his car and then driving a ways down the driveway. The plan worked flawlessly. The tree arched over bringing the cat with it. Unfortunately, at the very moment the pastor was about to rescue the cat, the rope snapped the tree sprang up, and the cat was shot over the house. The pastor frantically searched for his cat the remainder of the afternoon, but it was not to be found. Apparently, the cat was catapulted into orbit. A few days later, a neighbor of the pastor, who was a member of his congregation, rushed up to him at church, flushed with excitement. “You’ll never guess what happened,” the woman gushed. “My little boy wanted a cat, but I didn't want to get him one. We were in our backyard when he began pestering me again. I told him he should pray about it. He did — right there in the yard. And that's when it happened — a cat dropped out of the sky and landed right on his head! Isn't that something? God dropped a cat right on my little boy's head! it's a miracle!” Now I'm not sure what category this story falls in. God works in mysterious ways? Be careful what you pray for? Don't pray outside because you might get clobbered by a cat? God can use the most stupid ideas and bring something of a miracle out of them? Thank God for the wild gifts that come? Maybe the story fits under each category. There is much about God that remains a mystery. But then life itself is often a mystery and we ourselves are mysteries — especially to ourselves. And I suppose we should be careful what we pray for, because we just might get it and, unlike the little boy, what we get may not turn out to be what we really wanted after all. And exercise care as well because sometimes God does clobber us with an answer — it's the only way God can get through to us. And stupid ideas? Well, personally, it's a great comfort to me to believe that even out of great folly and less than brilliant plans, God can bring a miracle or two. Of course some might object that God had nothing to do with the cat falling from the sky. Oh, I don't know, but maybe the wisest policy, when an unexpected gift lands in your lap or on your head, is to simply give thanks to God. Because I have a feeling that's the greatest mystery and miracle of all: how God uses each of us to do God's thing. And that's the truth of all our stories - God working in and through each of us in some wonderful and unexpected ways, making each of us an answer to maybe a child's prayer but certainly to the world's deep need.
God be with you, Jeff
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