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No More Climbing the Walls
Am I as bad as my cat? by Joyce Starr Macias
My cat, Tribble, rarely showed interest in store-bought toys, but he would literally climb the walls when chasing a flashlight beam.
I would start out tracing a pattern on the carpet, smiling at him as he went round and round after a light he could never catch because it was constantly moving out of his reach. Tribble was part Maine Coon, which meant he was a pretty big boy long before he was full grown. Being so large, he was less than graceful in his leaps around the living room. And his co-ordination was even Photo: Eric Isselée/stock.Adobe.com worse when he’d chase a light that I had aimed part way up the wall! Up he’d go, paws flailing, never quite able to catch the evasive light.
I sometimes felt a little bad for teasing him that way, but I’d remind myself that an indoor cat needed exercise, whatever form it came in.
Guilty as Charged But it isn’t just cats who spend a good part of their time running in circles.
When I thought about his antics from a different point of view, I began to see that there were
similarities between his behaviour and my own.
No, I didn’t run circles around the living room, nor did I climb the walls.
But I plead guilty to wasting an awful lot of time spinning my wheels when I could have used it much more productively.
Part of that is my tendency to be less than well-organized despite my occasional spurts of effort in that direction, usually after reading a how-to article or excerpts from books such as Organizing for Dummies. No, my desk isn’t piled high with books and papers, but neither is it always what I’d call neat. And I can spend an awful lot of time looking for things around the house that aren’t where they are supposed to be.
My time-management skills aren’t too great, either. A one-hour project can so easily stretch into half a day, especially since I work from home where there’s always another load of laundry to throw into the machine or
6 • FEBRUARY 2020 I faithandfriends.ca a magazine that’s itching to be read.
Focused Effort Part of the frustration I feel when I fall for these time-wasting habits stems from knowing that there’s a better way, and it’s found in a book that doesn’t give me a new formula for revamping my kitchen cabinets or my office.
The instruction book I need the most, especially on those “chasing the flashlight beam” days, is one that’s been around for centuries: the Bible.
The most important reason for reading it is that it helps me grow closer to God and more in touch with its advice about how to live. The Bible contains advice that can precisely fit our needs, such as the verse that says, “But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way” (1 Corinthians 14:40). It doesn’t stop there. The Bible also shows us how to approach life, as well as how to be more productive. We can look to verses
A Fine Feline Tribble at rest
such as, “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 other words, you won’t have to waste time on paths that run every which way and don’t get you where you want to be. Trust in God grows when we spend time in His Word and in talking to Him in prayer. The times I’ve done that, ideas that save me time and effort just pop into my mind—things I had never thought about trying. And they always work! Learning to trust God to guide my steps helps me focus on getting things done in “a fitting and orderly way.” I’m not perfect, for sure, but I like God’s way a whole lot better than behaving like a cat fruitlessly chasing a flashlight beam up the wall.
(left) Joyce Starr Macias is a retired newspaper reporter who lives in Apache Junction, Arizona, with her husband, Everett, who is a deacon at their church. As a freelance writer, her stories have been published in numerous Christian magazines and short-story collections.
