Was I Not Supposed to Do That?

Purposeful Disobedience to God’s Will

If you live with a cat, you’ve seen it…the saunter, the glance over the shoulder to see if anyone’s watching. Then it happens. “It” might be different for every cat. For Shadow, it is the sinking of her claws into a piece of nice furniture. For your feline companion, it might be the leap to the countertop or curling up inside the baby’s crib. Whatever “it” is, it’s against the rules. More importantly, the feline knows it!

Yes, she knows when she’s doing something wrong. If she’s done it before, she’s been told…over and over and over again. Yet she keeps on with the behavior. She scratches the couch, jumps on the counter, gets cat hair on the baby’s sheets. And that little glance over the shoulder? That tells the whole story.

“It’s not wrong,” she says. “It’s not wrong if I don’t get caught.”

Like Shadow, we sometimes forget that we have a pretty smart Master. While we may seem omniscient (all-knowing) to a 12-inch-high cat, our Master really is all-knowing. Yes, He knows when we misbehave. More importantly, He knows we know better.

We may be higher on the food chain than our four-pawed companions, but we often don’t show a whole lot more sense when it comes to being repeat offenders. Whenever I see Shadow do something for which she’s previously experienced consequences—a scolding, a swat on the rump, or getting tossed on the porch—I have to shake my head in wonderment. Why doesn’t she get it? Why doesn’t she realize I don’t like that behavior? Why doesn’t she give up the fight and live in harmony with me?

God must wonder the same thing. According to Psalm 33:15, He made our hearts: “…he who fashions the hearts of them all…” How often does He shake His head over what we choose to do with those hearts? Does He ever think, Why don’t they just live in harmony with me?

Every good master, human or Divine, wants to live in harmony with an obedient creature. Like Shadow’s actions, our purposeful disobedience comes with consequences.

“For if we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:26-27).

When we insist and persist in scratching suede sofas, jumping on the counter to eat butter, gossiping, lying, sleeping around…well, there are consequences.

Sometimes those consequences are visible as a direct result of our behavior. They show up as the scratched tatters of ruined friendships, communicable diseases, fractured churches and broken marriages. Sometimes they’re invisible to the world, causing guilt and inner turmoil that we succeed in hiding from those around us. No matter, though; God always sees them. When we see the line in the sand and cross it anyway, we stretch a strand in our connection to God. As his beloved creatures, we still have a connection, but it’s weaker. Just like when Shadow thumbs her nose at my rules. I still love her, but life isn’t quite as comfortable for either of us.

Notice also that, through all of this, the Master never moved. It’s the cat, the creature, that crossed that line and strained the relationship.

Next time you’re tempted to do something against which you’ve been warned, sit down, take the time to groom yourself, and think. Is the softness of that particular mattress worth the scolding you’ll get? Is the taste of that scintillating morsel worth the Master’s wrath? Is it worth breaking His heart?

Further Reading: 1 John (Yes, the whole book…it’s short!)

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