Don’t Hit the Cat with the Spatula!

Seriously. Becoming a parent has had a bigger impact on my faith than any other event or situation in my life. Not only do I find myself praying more (“God, please let Aiden go back to sleep!”), but I’m understanding God’s relationship with mankind in whole new ways.

It’s funny. I find myself stringing words together in sentences that I never thought I would ever say. I never thought I would have to tell anyone not to hit a cat with a spatula. I never thought I would have to tell anyone not to feed his pancake to the dog. Leave it to Aiden to find whole new lists of do’s and don’ts!

Now he’s not even two. But if I had to keep telling him not to throw his drink down the stairs when he gets to be 13, then something would be seriously wrong.

And I think it’s the same way with God when he gave us the Law. He told them all the things they needed to know – and I mean everything. Don’t have sex with animals. Don’t touch a dead body. Take a day off during the week. Be nice to each other. You know – the basics.

613 commands in the Torah. That’s quite the list! I don’t think I had 613 rules in my house growing up.

But even with the rules I did have growing up, they were there for a reason. And now when I visit my parents they don’t have to hold me to all the former household rules. It’s not that the rules have been thrown out the window. Quite the opposite. Those rules and boundaries have become ingrained within me. They are part of who I am. And I know what kind of behavior my parents expect without having to be told.

Reading through Galatians has shown me that things are similar with God and the Law. It’s not that the Law has been completely scrapped. Rather, through Christ we have reached a certain level of maturity. We are no longer treated like little children. We are full grown sons – heirs of the Father and co-heirs with Christ. Through Christ we have the Spirit of God within us.

So do we need the Law anymore? No. But the Law has become part of us. It has taught us how God expects us to behave so that he no longer has to spell everything out for us. And the Law has taught us about God’s character so that we know what to expect from Him.

When Aiden gets older I won’t have to tell him not to hit the cats with a spatula. He will know that animals are to be treated with kindness and respect.

As we mature in our faith, God won’t have to tell us to love our neighbor as ourselves. We will just know that all people are to be loved with the sacrificial love shown first by Christ.

³¹“The time is coming,” declares the Lord,
 “when I will make a new covenant 
with the house of Israel
 and with the house of Judah.
³²It will not be like the covenant 
 I made with their forefathers 
when I took them by the hand
 to lead them out of Egypt, 
because they broke my covenant,
 though I was a husband to them,”
declares the Lord.
³³“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
 after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds 
 and write it on their hearts. 
I will be their God,
 and they will be my people. 
³⁴No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
 or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
 from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
 and will remember their sins no more.”

Jeremiah 31:31-34

1 Comment

Kara says:

07/09/2012 at 3:19 pm

Made me laugh because we just had to tell Ryan last night, \”Don't hit the dog with your monkey.\”… and he's almost 4… and he did apologize to the dog.But yes, being a parent teaches us a lot about how God feels when he constantly tells us things for our own good, and we willfully rebel anyway.

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