Chronicles of Wrai: Growing Trust
Here’s another update on Wrai. Short for Wraith, the little grey feral cat we trapped, carried to the vet, and transported from Pensacola, Florida to High Point, North Carolina is slowly regaining his trust in Sherri and me.
If you’ve missed some of my previous posts on Wrai, you can find them here, and here, and here.
Regaining trust. That’s the long and short of Wrai’s story as he acclimates to his new home. Think about it: we tricked him, trapped him, and carried him hundreds of miles from the only home he’d ever known. Of course, we did it in love, with Wrai’s best interest at heart, but he certainly didn’t see it that way.
But he is starting to trust us again. Is he letting us pet him? No way. He never has. But he did use to lay around in our backyard listening to music with us in the late afternoon and evening. He did eat treats laid at the foot of our lawn chairs. Most amazing of all, he never spooked when Sherri watered the plants. That’s a pretty big deal when you consider the antipathy cats have for water.
We bought some cat toys, which he is clearly playing with nightly. We leave treats all over the condo, and they’re gone every morning. Last night, we left a plate of cat pate at the end of the hallway, very close to the den where we were sitting, watching TV. It was gone in minutes. On top of all this, we’ve had a few Wrai sightings where he has not immediately run off to his hiding place in the rolled-up rug, which we have yet to find a place for.
So, Wrai is getting there. Soon the back door will be open, and he will inevitably become, once again, an outdoor cat. And we hope he will resume his evenings listening to music with us. I’ll probably cue up Al Stewart’s “The Year of the Cat” the first night I see him.
Wrai’s lack of trust comes from his limited understanding of what we’ve done to (actually “for”) him. We care for him. We love him. We don’t want to see him return to a life of surviving on garbage.
Our relationship with God is actually quite similar.
For our good and with our best interests in mind, God often moves us from one place to another, from one set of circumstances to an entirely different dwelling. And the fact is, God often does this without our consent, agreement, or input. Because of this, we often go kicking and screaming the whole way.
I’ll never forget what one of my mentors once told me. I was going through a particularly difficult time in my life and ministry. So difficult, in fact, that I was considering leaving my position as pastor and returning to the business world. After sharing my plans with him, he locked eyes with me, gazed deeply into my spirit, and said “Dan, you are going with God. You can go the easy way, or you can go the hard way, but you are going with God.
God knows what’s best for us. His plans for our lives are often beyond our ability to see or understand. And sometimes, we fight and struggle against the very things that our Lord is using to bless us and make us into the people He is calling us to be. But in time, His loving care overcomes our resistance, and we learn to trust Him, believing that He knows what’s best for our lives.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
In Christ,
Dan
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